SDT Vergil helmet

Guys, I am obsessed with fanart.

I've always enjoyed it, but for some reason I've been saving more and more of it on my Pinterest and Twitter feeds over the last five years or so. And recently I've been looking at them more and more through a photographer's lens, figuratively. I'll see a piece of art and immediately start figuring out how I would make that real. My photoshop skills aren't good enough to actually create some of these, but for some of the practical parts, I can't help but plan.

The first attempt was always going to be Sin Devil Trigger Vergil. There are several artists who have created partially transformed versions of the DMC guys and I'm in love with all of them. I love Dante, and I had done a version of Nero already, but Vergil is my emotional support idiot and I knew I'd have an easier time visualizing how to make his set of horns. I also had some leftover clear worbla from when I attempted Nero's wing claws, some seaglass spray paint, and a plan.

And of course because of who I am as a person, the plan almost immediately changed.

Sizing - the only part of this project that went as planned.

My original thought had been to create the main horns and maybe one or two other sets and then attach them to my wig with magnets. So I started with some sizing work. Clingwrap and tape around my head gave me a base to work with since the foam heads are very rarely sized correctly. One of the Kamui Cosplay horn patterns served as the main horn base so I could get the proper width and length to my head. Once everything was set, I got the wig to start marking placement.

The problem: I left the spikes on the wig long, which meant that there was no spot to place the horns that wouldn't require cutting them back or making them look strange going around the horns. I also realized that the head cast I made would be too small because the wig would add a good half inch of thickness.

But I already had a good base in my hands, correctly sized and ready start, plus losing the wig meant one less piece to maneuver when putting everything together. (I love the long wig for Vergil, but I need you to know that it's a bit of a pain to hold it up while I get the vest and jacket on without tangling everything. It's also heavy and pulls on the hairline after a while.) So we went from horns to a full helmet.

Someone get Akira Toriyama on the phone. I'm creating new Dragon Ball characters.

The first order of business was turning the tape cap into foam (I remembered to use templates!) so I would have a more solid base, and then adding the top parts to form a helmet. I knew I was likely to add some of the other horns and ridges, but I still have a little trauma from trying to get the Nero horns to work, so I wanted the main structure to be solid before I did anything else.

While gathering all of my foam, I remembered all of the clear worbla that I still had, and had the idea to use that for the glowing parts of the helmet. I had a few shades of blue seaglass Krylon paints, which would be perfect. I also realized that the thickness of the worbla would help add structure to the other horns. So I used some of the cheaper foam to template, cut and attached scraps of the worbla, painted, and started attaching.

I also decided to use foil for the eyebrow pieces because I figured covering those with foam clay would be easier than anything else. It was so delightful to be right.

The best part about cheap craft foam is that it's as easy to use as eva foam. But you do run the risk of making your characters look like they're wearing cheese slices.

Not my best work with the red parts, but give how rough Vergil's SDT form is, I decided against redoing it.

Once I had all of the foam pieces and some of the foam clay edging done, I realized that the top part was still a little uneven. Some of that was because I didn't do much to the base of the head and probably could have evened it out, and the rest was that I just could not get one of the worbla pieces to bend the way I wanted it. "Close enough!" is my motto though. I had a ton of extra foam clay because Michael's had it on sale for the first time since our store added a cosplay section, so I used that to try and fake an even top.

The angle makes it look more off center than it actually is, but it's much better. I also gave everything a layer of white to better see what needed to be filled in elsewhere.

I ended up adding some strips of foam clay to the side and lower horns as well to help with some texture. The main part of the head was left along because I knew there would be more detailed painting there and I didn't want to add too much. But the other sections didn't need as much. Plus the added layers of clay made it easy to blend into the seams between the craft foam later and the worbla.

One difficulty I didn't expect to have was finding the right base color. There were two main issues. First, Vergil glows. Mostly around his head, but also in his chest and various parts of his limbs. That means the light is going to reflect strangely depending on his surroundings. Second, a lot of DMC screenshot takers use filters and/or mods, so his coloring will vary wildly depending on whose work you're using to reference. The game model was only moderately helpful because of the first point but gave him a dark gray tone. The art book had him drawn black, which is closer to what the non-glowing parts of him looked like for the in-game model.

I ended up choosing a standard gray. Shadows and highlights would stand out more. I would have more freedom to light the set how I wanted. Plus if I decided it was too light, it would be easy enough add a smidgen of black and go over most of it without issue. And as an added bonus, it made the oil slick color that I added to the big horns pop quite a bit.

Quite a few of the game screenshots as well as his character model had a bit of an oil slick coloring, so I dry brushed it on just to try it. And I loved it.

Slowly adding chunky highlights and shadows. Everything was better blended once I had the first few layers down.

This was the moment I was grateful for not including the wig in this build.

Painted! All that was left to do at this stage was adjust the thickness of some highlights and make sure there weren't any remaining red or yellow foam bits poking through.

At this point I was trying to decide how I wanted to make the worbla portions pop. LED light setups scare me a little and this wasn't the stage to be making decisions about them anyway. My assumption had been that I would add some lighter or watered down paint to mimic a glow. At some point it dawned on me that the main horns were hollow and might hold some fairy lights. So I dug out the two sets that I had for unknown reasons, added batteries, and almost smacked myself in the face for not thinking about this sooner. They looked fantastic! They even mimicked the motion of Vergil's glow in-game, which I hadn't even considered.

Of course, that meant that the other parts now looked dull. And I couldn't just add lights the same way because the worbla was glued directly onto the craft foam. The best I could come up with at that point was finding smaller strings and lining the insides, then covering them with more craft foam and hoping it didn't dull the glow. The foam worked, but because fairly light bulbs tend to be spaced out quite a bit, it didn't do much beyond add a few dots of light. It was better than leaving those parts alone though. It was also an excuse to finally learn how to add glow effects in photoshop.

For real, I cannot overstate how excited I was to see this work.

Each horn ended up holding three battery packs, and yes, they smacked against everything while I was walking around.

The glow didn't work quite as well elsewhere, but it made photoshopping much easier later on.

The final part of the helmet was adding some flames to the end of the main horns. I was originally going to leave them alone, but I had a lot of little bits of scrap of worbla, and it doesn't take much from a heat gun to mold them into little squiggles, so I picked a few and hot glued them to the center hole at the end of each horn. A little watered down white paint over all of the worbla pieces to make it look like there was layers and movement, and we were done!

I need all of you know know that I had to crab-walk through my house every time I had this on. May that visual image comfort you in dark times.

Lighting issues aside, I love how well this turned out. It was a fun project where I got to learn some new skills as well as put current ones to the test, which I find the most fulfilling. Plus it was nice to just have to create one piece instead of an entire cosplay. My goal is to eventually make Vergil's DMC3 head, which is more angular but roughly the same shape, and would be an easier costume to put together as it's not a full demon suit. I'll be putting all of these lessons - plus some LED knowledge - to good use on that one in a few years.

To round off the cosplay, I added 17mm cyan mesh lenses from Kawaii Love Beauty and some fake stiletto nails painted light and dark blue to mimic the claws. I had originally purchased some fantastic scaly fabric to make gloves, but unfortunately the fabric type just wasn't going to cooperate for a glove pattern. It tore easily. I spent a lot of money on it though, so I'll find another use for it. I also added a little bit of eyeshadow to connect the eyes to the blue spots just below the helmet brows and some gray and black to make it seem as though the transformation was spreading. That part didn't show much on camera, but it made for great post-cosplay selfies.

And finally, this was the first cosplay I shot on my new camera, a Canon EOS Rebel SL3 DSLR. I'd had my eye on it for a while as an affordable option and simple for what I needed. Holy shit, what a difference an actual camera makes! My Android has done the job well; my only real complaints have been with the selfie camera, which is what I've had to use in order to be able to see what I'm doing on camera. The Canon has a flip screen to help with that now. I have a monitor earmarked for purchase later this year to give me even more of a visual. I can't wait to get into the video portion of this camera for my reels and snippets.

On to the 2024 cosplay list!

I will not miss 2023, but I'll miss wearing Vergil for a bit. Also how does my mouth do that?