 ADELBERT STEINER Final Fantasy IX |
| Costume Stats: |
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Costume Completed: 2014 Debut: Anime Boston 2014 |
| Convention History: |
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Anime Boston 2014 PortCon Maine 2014 Katsucon 2015 Anime Boston 2015 Anime Boston 2017 |
| Performances: |
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Masquerade, Anime Boston 2014 Cosplay Chess, Anime Boston 2014 |
| Awards: |
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* First Place Performance, Master's Anime Boston 2014 |
| Photo Castmates: |
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General Beatrix: Shiva |
| Photo Credits: |
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Shiva AmiePhotos |
Construction Notes:
I really enjoyed making this costume; Steiner is such a doof and problem-solving his complex and oddly-proportioned costume was a fun challenge. This was my first time making armor from EVA foam; using a dress form, I spent a lot of time hand-patterning out how to fit the foam pieces of his plate armor together like a jigsaw puzzle. Quite a few of the pieces Velcro together, while others are glued. Once the pieces were figured out, I glued them together and coated them in Plastidip spray before painting. For the larger chain loops on his shoulders, I used plastic rings I cut off a PVC pipe and connected them by melting the plastic with a lighter. Since Steiner has so much grey, I tried to vary the shades, both with paint and with fabric and texture choices, to break things up visually a bit. In this vein, I choose a shiny textured silver polyester to make his shorts, while under the foam armor I used a real chainmail shirt which I bought off of eBay and shortened since Steiner has short sleeves. His gloves were a challenge as I needed to find a way to enlarge my hands; I ended up using foam insulation piping notched over my knuckles and foam strips glued to baseball gloves to create false mass, then patterned the gloves off this enlarged size using a white knit fabric.
The shoes were built off old marching band shoes; I hinged the toe armor to the tops with button snaps and enlarged them with foam to mimic more of Steiner's distorted proportions. The belts are all made from real leather strips which I stained and painted on the embossed pattern by hand. I made Steiner's huge sword using a wiffle ball bat and worbla for the hilt, and plain wood for the blade. The blade is wrapped in aluminum duct tape and weathered with a steel brush to give it a realistic finish. The sword sheath was made from scrap leather wrapped around cardboard so it can be carried on my back. I did a split side opening on top so that drawing the sword up and over my shoulder would be possible without help.
Photoshoot Pics:
