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+--- Thread: Kamen Rider Gaim Kachidoki Arms cosplay. (/Thread-Kamen-Rider-Gaim-Kachidoki-Arms-cosplay)
Kamen Rider Gaim Kachidoki Arms cosplay. - Kai-V - Aug. 15, 2015
A week ago, I won my bet.
I have always been interested in cosplay, and I watched a show called "Heroes of Cosplay" which taught me a few things and showed me the real depth of cosplays. And for some reason, when I watched Kamen Rider Gaim, I saw Gaim Kachidoki Arms (orange-themed samurai) and thought that it would be a very easy cosplay to make, since everything was just one panel, one panel, etc. In a sense, it totally was that easy, but the reception I got from someone who was a lot more professional than me is that I had a lot of skills/technique for using just foam, hah.
First and foremost, the only piece I did not do in this cosplay is the helmet, since it was my first time and that I wanted to be sure I could see and breath right in it. Both actions were extremely limited with the helmet I got commissioned from ACT Studio in Indonesia anyway, but at least it was tolerable and obviously looked great.
The actual steps to get to the final result are just multiple hours of very simple tasks, personally. I started by sketching each part into different pieces that seemed logical to do separately and then put together at the end. Then, I took a neutral picture of Kamen Rider Gaim Kachidoki Arms and did multiplication tables to determine what the measurements were in my proportions. After that, it was drawing and cutting with an X-Acto on pieces of foam puzzle carpet :
[Image: MoIq8CQ.jpg] [Image: EsOu9SA.jpg] [Image: tZnUApG.jpg] [Image: EJ5ATeW.jpg] [Image: Q68iK0z.jpg]
The first issue that came along the way was with the chest piece. That damn truncated cone proved to be difficult to make come to life. It needed to be angled but not completely perpendicular to the chestplate. I ended up finding the right mathematical formula on the University of Regina's website. The result is not perfect compared to the actual official costume's inclination, but it does the job :
[Image: A0s8xdp.jpg]
The rest of the work involved bending the pieces and painting them, which went quite fine :
[Image: lSrP4y3.jpg] [Image: XyvteBd.jpg] [Image: KxvHkdR.jpg] [Image: jGVS0rh.jpg]
The heat gun also served to bolden certain lines or holes.
The biggest problem I encountered unfortunately happened at the end, when came the time to actually attach each piece together. It seems that parts should be glued together before the paint is applied. Furthermore, I consequently had three methods in mind to stick things together, and I can say that each of them got its use but I found out that they only worked in specific cases :
- Velcro : some painted foam to painted foam, definitely better than painted foam + hot glue + painted foam, and also sometimes good for cloth to foam. I loved Velcro but discovered the hard way that it was not infallible at all;
- Double-sided sticker : the sort that is used for clothing, not the very thin kind. It was only good momentarily for the gloves though, and to reinforce some Velcro temporarily, so I used it primarily to hold the multiple screw buttons during painting;
- Glue, as described previously, works best for foam-to-foam before painting, and remotely well for painted pieces that had to be stuck flat against each other, at least.
However, none of that experimentation and lesson solved my problem at all : there was no foolproof way of attaching a piece to another for a full day. This means that everything, including the shoulder plates which were an important part of good poses, was very fragile and I required a partner at all times in case something fell off.
There were other issues, like the pattern for the blue one-piece suit being rather off and the yellow lines not being able to be printed onto the fabric used for it on the thighs and forearms, but those were relatively minor. The shoes were also way smaller than expected and for some reason, you cannot spraypaint shoes and expect the paint to dry despite being left alone for days.
Having started drawing around the end of winter I believe, my initial goal had been to have this cosplay ready for Anime North 2015 in May in Toronto, but I only received the helmet shortly after my trip to Japan, where by the way I saw an exhibition that confirmed that tokusatsu costumes are totally made of foam as well. I needed the helmet before moving to the painting part, because the colours the group would choose would need to be reproduced as much as possible to match. However, the paint they chose ended up not being up for import, so what I purchased from local department stores was not that similar in the end.
All in all, I spent over a month taking all of my free time going outside, spray-painting pieces and waiting for the paint to dry, bottom and front side, for some fifty parts at least. This meant that I could be on time for the next closest convention, Otakuthon in Montréal, QC, Canada, on August 7-9th. Since I knew that the costume was very fragile and that the convention was too boring personally to go Sunday for sure, I chose to cosplay only on the Saturday, for as many hours as everything would hold together. With some stich-ups, it was able to stay relatively put for six hours, and it attracted a lot of attention compared to my first unofficial cosplay of Kyo (Dir en grey). Oddly, there were dozens of photographs taken, even selfies, but none of them found their way online, apparently. I sort of planned for this to happen though and asked my brother to take a few photographs at the end of the day, in case there were none better that I could find on the Internet anyway. Thankfully, at least four videos were shot that are better :
(3:19)
(4:18)
(1:34)
(2:25)
YouTuber MaximumDiver should have a really cool one coming up eventually as well.
Here are the photographs my brother took anyway, just to show some more details :
[Image: qM16uWM.jpg]
[Image: YTRKF9r.jpg]
[Image: WUBDHan.jpg]
(The only two Kamen Rider Gaim cosplay of the whole convention, it seems :)
[Image: S6sFwDW.jpg]
Overall, I think there are more things missing due to physical impossibilities than there are errors. So, all in all, the result is satisfying.
I would have liked to have professional photographs taken for this costume as well, but this year I saw no studios in the dealer's room. Unfortunately, I do not think it will be possible to bring all of the pieces to Toronto for Anime North 2016 as planned, especially since I will not be alone in the car, so this may have been a one-time deal, but it was worth it. I considered entering the masquerade for a chance at the prize, like in the Heroes of Cosplay television show, but for me it made no sense to participate at my first cosplay, against people who are a lot more experienced and who have the advantage of wearing a cosplay mostly made of clothes, instead of fragile, numerous pieces of foam. The prize, I knew, would lie in the reception and in at least the recognition of the character, and that goal was definitely met.
If you have any questions, I can definitely try answering them, even though I am still no expert.
Be your own coolest person in the universe.
RE: Kamen Rider Gaim Kachidoki Arms cosplay. - MissingNo. - Aug. 15, 2015
I know a little to nothing about Kamen Rider, but still, I think that your cosplay looks really awesome !
(Aug. 15, 2015 6:24 PM)Kai-V Wrote: (The only two Kamen Rider Gaim cosplay of the whole convention, it seems :)
Oh my, at first I thought this was a smiley.
RE: Kamen Rider Gaim Kachidoki Arms cosplay. - Kai-V - Aug. 15, 2015
Oh right, that is what I wanted to do : add a reference picture for those not familiar with the character hah.
[Image: kamen_rider_gaim___kachidoki_arms__image...7ep5df.jpg]
And no, I made sure to disable similies in my post because I also caught that hahah.
RE: Kamen Rider Gaim Kachidoki Arms cosplay. - Neo - Aug. 15, 2015
That is sooooo awesome!
Haven't seen Gaim, but Kachadoki is my favorite design.
RE: Kamen Rider Gaim Kachidoki Arms cosplay. - Kai-V - Aug. 16, 2015
Ah, I just found another picture :
[Image: otakuthon_2015_snapshot_86_by_shnoogums5060-d94uuyn.jpg]
RE: Kamen Rider Gaim Kachidoki Arms cosplay. - Zoroaste - Aug. 16, 2015
Wow, super cool cosplay. Amazing job, looks really good
RE: Kamen Rider Gaim Kachidoki Arms cosplay. - BladerC - Aug. 16, 2015
Well...this is beyond amazing, I just can't think of a better bunch of words to describe it. Extreme awesomeness sounds about right. Ryugens my favorite