A German cosplayer has recreated a 35-kilogram armor of the Warden from the game For Honor. It took him 8.5 months and over €6,000. He is not a professional.
Cosplays have now grown into an art form, and photos of really cool outfits can be found all over the internet. One such photo, featuring armor of the Hero class Warden, landed in the gaming subreddit (via reddit) and was cheered by thousands.
We at MeinMMO spoke with the creator of the armor, a German cosplayer named Chris. Here is what he told us about his work.
What is special about the cosplay? At first glance, Chris’s cosplay looks cool and well-crafted, but its special feature is not immediately recognizable to the naked eye. It lies in the weight.
Overall, this piece weighs a hefty 35 kilograms. For the production of the outfit, the cosplayer chose steel. In our conversation, he told me:
I chose metal because I saw other cosplays made of foam and they didn’t look that good. At least not how I imagined it. So it had to be metal to make it authentic.
The complete outfit is not made entirely of steel. The armor plates and the chainmail are made of metal, with the chainmail being the heaviest part. Other parts, such as the sword and embellishments, were made with a 3D printer, says Chris.
Nevertheless, it is a challenge to wear this armor at conventions or medieval fairs. According to Chris, the longest wearing time was about 6 hours on a hot summer day, during which he was careful to drink a lot and take long breaks to recover.
Maul Cosplay as Inspiration
This is how it started: Behind stylish cosplays and impressive armors are often cosplayers who have many years of experience. They know how to make an outfit look as realistic as possible.
All the more I was surprised when I learned that the Warden armor was Chris’s first cosplay. It all started with an inspiration:
I had never dealt with the topic and somehow came across Maul Cosplay (via Instagram). This was at the time when I was playing The Witcher.
And when I saw his costume of Geralt, I thought: “It can’t be! Is that real?!” and I was just blown away.
Meanwhile, the game “For Honor” was released, where you can customize your character according to your wishes. And I thought: “Come on, try the knight…”
Initially, Chris tried to assemble an armor from purchased items, but according to his statement, it didn’t look good. Therefore, he decided to start completely from scratch.
For this, he went on YouTube. There are countless videos circulating with tutorials on creating cosplay pieces, replicas, and metalworking. The work was then done in the apartment, in a smaller basement area, and sometimes in his parents’ workshop.
At a convention, Chris was also able to meet his idol, Maul Cosplay.
Heavy Start with Many Setbacks
Unfortunately, not everything goes smoothly when forging and sewing, as demonstrated in the tutorials. Chris also had to struggle with some problems during his work, as he told me in our conversation:
It was one catastrophe after another! If you look at it in real life, you can see that some things are semi-professionally processed. […] The hardest parts were the shoulders and the helmet. They were too small in the first attempt, and the helmet was too big. And with metalworking, if something doesn’t fit, you start from scratch. But the worst part was the skirt. Sewing work… really terrible.
Chris had a certain advantage when he started cosplaying. As a mechanical engineer with over 10 years of experience in 3D modeling, he could apply his knowledge when creating the armor.
In total, Chris worked for 8.5 months on the armor, always in the evenings after work. The expenses amounted to over €6,000, including the costs for tools.
This is an investment for the future. Meanwhile, Chris has already created his second cosplay, which also comes from “For Honor”. The Nuxia outfit is worn by his girlfriend and also looks great, even if it is certainly not as heavy.
The next cosplay, again from For Honor, is already in the works. This time, Chris has taken on the Gladiator from the game and is working on the costume in his free time.
For cosplay beginners, he has a simple yet effective piece of advice:
Practice! Just get started and try it out. If you are not satisfied with the result, try again. “Learning by doing” indeed, anyone can learn it.
