Shadowheart Armor Baldur's Gate 3 Cosplay

This was my first foam crafting project ever, with the exception of a couple of incredibly terrible projects in 2018 that shall not be mentioned. For years, I had looked at other beautiful foam cosplay armor projects and thought, “Wow, I wish that could be me,” then felt too scared to actually try it whenever a project idea came up. Just like any other skill, though, I had to start somewhere. I waited until there was a particular project that would be desirable enough to get over my fear. Then Baldur’s Gate 3 came out. After a few weeks of playing, I absolutely had to cosplay Shadowheart. There was her regular armor, dark Justiciar armor, and rest attire. I wanted to make some armor, but the Dark Justiciar did not look very beginner-friendly. So, I selected Shadowheart’s start-of-game armor and started planning.

Foam Crafting

Luckily, there was a pre-made pattern on Etsy for this project, which added to its appeal. Having never worked with foam, a pre-made pattern made a huge difference. My perspective, as someone who sews, was that it would be insane to do your first sewing project without a pattern. The one critique I have of this pattern is that I would have preferred to use heat to bend the foam instead of using glue and smaller cuts of foam to achieve the needed shapes.

I cut out all the paper pieces of the pattern, and they seemed endless. It was difficult to keep them all organized, so I used manila envelopes to group the foam piece patterns together. There were five pieces: shoulder pauldrons, chest armor, back armor, mace, and shield. I only used the shoulder pauldron, chest armor, and back armor pieces. If I use a prop, it’ll likely be a sword, as I’m a HEMA fencing longsword lover, and I think—but I’m not sure—if Shadowheart is proficient in longswords.

The first lesson I learned with crafting was to have an incredibly sharp X-Acto blade. I realized this a little late and ended up with some messy pieces. A sharp blade is essential for achieving clean seam lines between foam pieces; filling later on only helps so much. I used rubber cement to assemble everything. The Pepakura design file that came with the pattern was extremely helpful, providing a 3D visualization of the paper pieces. It was my first time using rubber cement, so I discovered that I needed to let it dry for around 30-60 seconds before joining the two pieces together. I initially assembled smaller groups of pieces, then combined them into larger groups as they were completed.

In the future, there is an area I’d like to work on more: filling in gaps and smoothing things over. If I had used sharp enough blades from the start, this likely wouldn’t have been a problem. This is something for my future self to explore further. I filled in my messy gaps with DAP Alex Caulk, then blended the edges by applying some water to my finger and smoothing it out. Initially, I did this with gloves, but it worked better using my bare hands and then washing them afterward. I also tried using foam clay, which was only useful for a really large gap I had. I used foam clay on the pauldrons to build out a more rounded shape in the middle area.

Painting

Painting isn’t my strong suit, but I tried and learned. I primed the pieces with spray-on Plasti Dip, which worked well. I let it dry overnight in my garage, resulting in a perfect base. I used silver acrylic paint to cover the pieces. Instead of applying it with a brush, I used a piece of muslin for a more “realistic” metal look. I think it looked great with the muslin rag brush instead of a paintbrush. Then I mixed the silver with black and painted around the edges of each piece to add some visual depth.

Conclusion

There are many improvements I would make on this, starting with ensuring the pieces were cut correctly. However, considering it was my first foam project, it turned out well, so I’ll take a win where I can get one. Please check out the YouTube videos to see the process: