Since we always do at least a duo (when TheLittleSis or TheMom don’t join us), we needed to find a cosplay for Neevillia in the FullMetal Alchemist universe. And of course, what better duo with Alphonse Elric than… Barry the Chopper obviously!
Seriously, it happened exactly like that :
*watching FullMetal Alchemist Brotherhood*
Sheldora: It would be pretty cool to make Alphonse’s armor in cosplay.
Neevillia: And me, what character would I do? Barry?
And just like that, it was decided. Yes, Ed should have been the obvious choice, since he is the main character of the story. Without mentioning that it would have been far easier, even with the arm automail, or even eventually the leg one. But no, making the psychopath serial killer in a big complicate armor, had seemed more obvious to us. And after all, who can dislike Barry?
With the « Making-of » posts, I go over the whole conception of a character, including the mistakes sometimes made, and when possible the sewing part (for which I don’t always have pictures…).
1. Costume Choice
For Barry, like Alphonse, I based the armor on the manga version, but for the color on the Brotherhood anime. Yeah because in the beautiful 300 pages artbook FMA there are… 2 pictures of Barry, counting the one on the cover and a tiny one like a cameo on a corner.
2. Pieces list
Barry has fewer pieces than Alphonse but compensates for that with two big accessories. And the armor pieces are falsely simple.
For the armor: helmet, bust, collar, arms, forearms, gauntlets, shoulder pads, and legs. For the costume « non-armor » part: some sort of harness and a belt.
For the accessories: a knife and a chopper, and last but not least: the sewing part: a ripped tunic.
Like Alphonse’s, the making-of will be cut into several parts, probably three.
3. Crafting
If not otherwise specified, the whole armor is made with 5mm EVA foam.
- The helmet :
Like Alphonse, I started Barry’s costume with the helmet. And like Alphonse, it’s based on my The Mighty Thor helmet pattern. So here’s again the bowl-like base of Thor’s.
But because the original one was used as a scratching post (thanks cats…), I had to redo it. I used this opportunity to make it a bit longer at the neck by prolonging the pattern in the back.
The most difficult part of the helmet is of course the skeleton face of Barry.
I knew I would use foam clay to model the organic shapes, but I still needed to pattern the pieces for the base.
The eyes/eyebrows part was quite easy, but the nose and the jaw took a lot of adjustments. The cheekbones and the nose were too flat, then the nose was too prominent, the jaw too align with the nose, the mouth was too open… And so on.
To give you some ideas of the struggle, here are all the prototype patterns :
