The Overwatch Summer Games released at the perfect time for this project. Reaper was originally going to be our next cosplay after Hanzo, so when the majestic orange and black motorcross skin came out, we saw it as a sign from Lord Jeff.
Filming these sessions is an absolute blast and there’s a smile plastered across my face the whole time I’m putting the footage together.
We put the whole costume together a day after the skin was released and filmed all of the footage you can see above. Not bad eh? This cosplay is truly cutting EDGE in terms of skill, time investment, technology, and class.
Supplying The Reaper Costume
Hanzo required a lot of running around for gimmicky parts of his costume, but after we got all the pieces together it was a relatively quick “hair & makeup” session.
Reaper was pretty straight forward, it just took a long time to put the actual costume together.
I’m an avid biker, so all the gear was ready to go. Helmet, jacket, pants, and boots. Easy peasy.
Before we met up to film, I popped into town to figure out what we could use for the unlimited supply of guns Reaper seems to possess.
We also needed a ton of card, so I made my way to an arts & crafts shop. How you can call yourself an arts & crafts shop when you don’t stock card, paper, or felt, I have no idea.
What they did sell though was water guns! (wtf?) They only had one orange gun left in stock, so I decided to spice it up and get a nice selection of colors.
I hauled my collection of water guns home and Scowy & Scott came to pick me up so we could get some card from a real arts & crafts shop. This place was a giant warehouse full of supplies.
We’ll be going there from now on for all of our next videos. Every aisle you walk down provides a new hilarious idea for another video and Overwatch character.
This was my first time in a real arts & crafts shop and let’s just say I’m not familiar with the “customs”.
We realized we needed a cape to go with the cosplay, and we stumbled upon a huge roll of black cloth. It said £2.50 on it, so I was like:
“There is no fucking way they’ll sell this for £2.50”
Moments later an employee came round the corner, cue me:
“Excuse me, it’s not £2.50 for this whole thing is it?”
Trying to hold back a laugh with a “bless you” look in her eyes, she happily informed me that it was £2.50 for a meter of the black cloth-like material.
You learn something new everyday.
We finally found some card, and as we were hauling our stuff to the till we remembered the Halloween highlight intro.
“Guys, we need to find some bats. You reckon they have a bat section?”
They did not have a bat section.
What we did find though was a lovely pair of handmade butterflys. You can see them fly out from behind me in the video. Money well spent!
We made our way to the cashier to pay when she struck up a conversation.
“Are you off to a fancy dress party?”
“Nah, just hitting the town.” I replied.
All the props and parts for the Cosplay were sorted. After a quick stop at KFC to eat and come up with a storyboard, we made our way back to Scowy’s gaff.
Putting The Reaper Cosplay Together
“Wow, this should be pretty easy actually. Much faster than the Hanzo one” – famous last words.
We all started on a piece of clothing each. I took the helmet, Scowy was on the jacket, and Scott tackled the pants.
We demolished Scowy’s living room with duct tape and card. Scott put some serious time into crafting the “edge” lettering. ART GCSE coming in handy right there – to scale and everything.
Scowy’s Mum popped in for a laugh at our expense. She ended up doing more work in ten minutes than three of us did in two hours. She’s responsible for the kick-ass shoulder pads, center patterns, and awesome cape.
Edna Mole (The Incredibles) had a frequent quote throughout the process.
The duct tape was not keeping the card stuck to my clothing, so we did what smart people do and used more duct tape. In the end we would just wrap the tape all the way around me, effectively pinning the card to me.
I’m honestly incredibly happy with how well the Reaper cosplay turned out. We put it all together a day after the release and it doesn’t look half bad.
Recording The Reaper Videos
We started off with our usual photoshoot – people respond better to videos & gifs, so we didn’t spend as much time on pictures this time.
After getting a couple of generic poses down, it was time to tackle the memes– I mean serious videos.
Before we started recording the videos, I was already starting to get hot…
Running around in full bike gear, with duct tape blocking all the breathing holes was a fun experience that I do not plan on doing again.
Shrek would have been jealous of my swamp ass, and we still had a few hours to go.
The sun was being relentless (surprisingly for the UK) and drinking water through the helmet required a magnificent straw contraption that kept nipping my lip.
Dropping to the floor for my teleportation magic trick took so many takes. I have a sprained thumb to deal with as I type this out for you.
We hope you appreciate the amount effort we went through in order to get you to breathe a bit harder through your nose.
If you like our stuff, follow us on Twitch & Youtube. Followers dictate my self worth so FEED ME!
Peace <3
Previous Article: Overwatch Hanzo Cosplay + Mojo Introduction