You played 2 hours to die like this? - In-Game Taunt, Age of Empires 2

Princess Sorsha Armor

Build Materials

6mm EVA Foam
Black Leather
Leather Rivets
Barge TF Contact Cement
Googly Eyes
Wig and Overcoat
Wood Dowels
Feathers

Build Process

For the Sorsha build, I built the helmet and Tom built the sword. Josh and Kim (our featured cosplayer) took on pretty much all of the armor and embellishments.

My lone contribution to main Sorsha body armor, other than materials

There weren’t many in-process shots of the armor. Just a few blurry candids. Here is a cropped image from the corset belt Josh worked on. Black leather, rivets, and I’m pretty sure there’s some contact cement in there as well.

Here’s a shot of Kim when we were heading down to the main floor.
Posing on the main floor at CVG2019
Shot from the photo booth at CVG2019

Princess Sorsha Helmet

Build Materials & Sources

  • 6mm EVA Foam, TNT Cosplay Supply
  • C4 Foam Clay, TNT Cosplay Supply
  • Black Leather
  • Styrene Plastic Sheets
  • Aluminum Chainmail
  • Half-Round Pearl Beads
  • Barge TF Contact Cement

Pattern Base:

Evil Ted’s Samurai Helmet (top section only)
Freehanded Parts

Build Process

Sorsha’s Helmet

Helmet Materials: EVA Foam, Foam Clay, Styrene, Leather
Sword Materials: EVA Foam with a 3/8″ Metal Core, Leather

Helmet Base Form

This is the earliest in the process that I started taking photos. I used the top part of Evil Ted’s Samurai Helmet as a base to work from. The brim, nose guard, and the fins were freehanded pieces from scrap foam.

Helmet Finial

The finial was fun to sculpt. I used a circle cutter to cut out rounds of EVA Foam and then stacked together and glued. I used a round toothpick to hold anchor all of the pieces and to center the point on the top of the helmet.

A Riveting Discussion

Preparing for attaching the “rivets”. I measured the sections and marked off rivet points at even intervals.

The rivets were simulated with Half-Round White Beads from Michael’s. I liked the rounded look better than googly eyes. The gaps were filled with EVA foam after wetting them down with water. I tried making the vertical pieces on the brim from Foam Clay, but they fell apart during sanding so Tom added strips of foam instead.

Post-paint photo. Tom did an awesome job with the coloring on this onen

Styrene Plastic sheets were used to create the diamon shapes for the helmet. I know I could have done some parts better here, but I’m still proud of the work.

The Finished Helmet

This is the completed helmet. Excuse the mess behind it. While there are some things I could have done differently with this build, I think it turned out fairly well.