Overwatch

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.

Three Hours Later…

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 

I’m going to be open and straight forward with you all from the start.

I want to be a streamer, and in order to do that I need to get noticed. Look at how much effort I put in just to get your attention.

So I’ll make you a deal. If I can make you crack a smile before you reach the end of this post, you have to follow me on Twitch and check me out for a few minutes the next time I stream. If I can’t get your pearly whites to make an appearance, you can come and roast me harder than Tyler1 in my chat. Sound fair?

This post is going to be fairly unstructured, that’s just how I roll. Now that the introduction and my intentions are out of the way – I want to share my vision for Mojo and invite you all on this exciting journey.

(Play this music in the background before you read the next few paragraphs)

I want Mojo (MJO) to carve out its place in the future of eSports. I want teams & individuals to play under our name and I want us to manage and support them like professionals. We will be the Manchester United of eSports. (We’re based in Manchester, UK)

It’s my aim to develop the UK eSports scene into a serious contender for current and future eSports. Ladies & Gentleman, I want to work with the best and brightest people in the business so I can deliver to YOU the highest caliber of entertainment you’ve ever seen.

I want the hair-splittingly close grand finals, I want the infamous underdog stories, I want the loyal fans who support us every step of the way.

This dream isn’t possible without all of you wonderful gamers, viewers, and memers. Stick around because we’re here to blow your mind.

(End music)

Do you feel those goose bumps? That was pretty intense… Let’s move onto the highly detailed Hanzo Cosplay we spent weeks perfecting.

Last week I finally upgraded my internet so I’m able to stream properly. Getting a following takes a lot of time, hard work, and originality. What better way to kick start my streaming career than to make a tit of myself on the internet?

I’d mentioned in the past to a couple of friends that dressing up as Overwatch characters and recording some funny scenes would be a laugh. Costumes, props, cameras, computers, people, and everything in between isn’t cheap.

This way all the money spent making hilarious photoshoots and videos is a stream investment. You know what I mean? Of course, this isn’t going to work without you. I need your thoughts, I need your feedback, and I need your patience.

Pop into the stream and share your opinion. What don’t you like? What do you love? Is the game play good enough? Is the music annoying? Am I boring? Am I entertaining? I won’t improve without everyone’s valuable feedback.

Recording Day

I’d sorted a few props (bow & arrow) and costume parts (shoes, shorts, shirts, and towels) out before hand, but the costume was still no where near ready. I bought a shitty £40 video camera off Amazon the day before and read the manual the morning of recording. My first time holding a video camera. I have zero experience with any of this, so it’s all one big learning experience.

I even bought a tripod because in my eyes that is what professionals use. When I opened the tripod box, it dawned on me that I was an idiot and I hadn’t read the measurements.

What I pulled out was a head crab sized tripod that wasn’t going to help us one bit. Fuck up numero uno. You know what? We’re going to tally the fuck ups.

BUT, I am not the turd.

I rang up my friend, Scowy, and told him to come and pick me up because we need to go to Toys ‘R’ Us to get a toy dragon for the arm and chest tattoo. When he arrived I tossed everything onto the back seat (including the handy tripod). We then went to pick up Scott, a friend who knows how a camera works and is familiar with filming.

After scouring Toys ‘R’ Us for over twenty minutes, it became clear that there were no toy dragons up for the task. We did manage to find a luminous pink snake, but it wasn’t long enough to wrap around my enormous bicep.

Like intelligent individuals, we put all of our brains together to form one normal brain and came up with two choices. We draw it on or we steal Scott’s dog’s squeaky snake toy. Say that five times!

We made a quick stop at Burger King to brain storm some funny scenes and tried to put a storyboard together. Then like true British weather, it went from pleasant clouds to torrential rain.

“Fucking typical”

BUT, we are not the turd 

Not letting the weather beat us, we got back into the car to drive to Scowy’s house to film. It was at this moment that Scott found my magnificent tripod. After having a laugh and explaining the story, he pulled on the bottom and out came a huge extension. Apparently it was a full sized tripod, I just didn’t know they collapsed like that. Does that bring my fuck ups back down to zero?

After hauling everything into his living room, it was time for Scowy and I to tackle hair & makeup. Scott had to run home to walk his dog, get his camera, and steal a snake. The original plan for Hanzo’s quiff was to tape a comb to my forehead, but Scowy’s Mum was kind enough to let me ruin her hair extensions.

Here’s fuck up number one.

I don’t know how girls deal with this shit all day long, but having a flappy quiff of hair in your face gets annoying really fucking quick.

We taped it into my hair using fancy hair tape and that fucker was stuck in there real good. Starting with this piece of the outfit first was not a smart move.

After learning from our mistakes, we decided to leave the top knot until later.

The bottom half was easy. Looking back on it now, I wish I made a bit more effort with the shorts. I’m sure I could have found a bigger, baggier pair somewhere. For the boots I just used my motorbike boots and didn’t fasten them up.

Then it was time to deal with the top half. Initially the plan was to use a black towel, but it ended up being too short and my belly button was sticking out. I ended up ripping a black t-shirt at the neck and then sticking my arm out, giving that beautiful ‘vest’ like effect.

Progress was being made! Now it was just the bits and bobs – the fine details. I spun up a blue towel like I was about to start a war in a locker room and wrapped it around my waist. Then I put a leather belt across my chest and dangled a blue belt from the towel. I used a motorbike glove for his hand.

Enter fuck up number two.

I don’t have much experience duct taping shit to humans, hair, or clothes.

Duct tape does not stick to humans, hair, or clothes.

We had to duct tape a shaving brush to my fucking head, a water bottle to my hip, a soda can to my nipple, and a video camera pouch to my stomach.

As soon as we got one item to stick, another one would fall off. After wasting half a roll of duct tape, the costume was finally getting close to finished. The only problem was my mobility was severely limited because the towel would come undone if I bent down, which then meant all of the duct tape would come undone as well.

I also couldn’t move my neck or head because the top knot would fall off. Bearing in mind we were toying around with the idea of doing the back flip highlight intro…

That idea quickly got scrapped.

Hello fuck up number three.

I still hadn’t drawn on the facial hair. The only mirror in the house was in the bathroom. I was in the living room.

It took me fifteen minutes to climb those stairs, but we managed without a major catastrophe. I was rocking a bit of stubble already, so the beard actually came out pretty well. We only had to highlight the goatee with a black sharpie. We also planned to cut out some black card for my chin to get a bit of a 3D like effect, but we forgot.

Keep in mind that I still have hair extentions slapping into my face and mouth, I have to keep my neck and head perfectly still otherwise the top knot falls off, I can’t bend over, and now I am high off sharpie fumes.

I carefully make my way downstairs, taking yet another 15 minutes, and land at the bottom.

Oh look, it’s fuck up number four. Nice of you to show up.

I turn to my left and there is a big fuck off mirror staring right at me in the hallway.

After murdering Scowy for not telling me there was a mirror right there, it became clear that he told me there was a mirror right there – Evidently I am not what you call a “listener”.

All that was left was the tattoo. I went into the living room to grab my bow, and that’s when Scott arrived with a chewed up snake toy. We duct taped it to me and it stayed on surprisingly well. Oh and we used Scott’s tripod bag as my quiver – smart thinking!

Behold our wondrous creation:

    

Videos

Oh, it gets better… It’s time to move onto the Hanzo Hightlight Intros:

Getting the top knot to not fall off for this shot took so many takes.

We tried so many different variations of this next highlight intro, this one was one of the funniest.

The arrow would constantly get stuck in the end of the hole and dangle there awkwardly. Timing Scowy with the arrow and with me letting go of the string was also a nightmare.

Once again you can see that top knot being a pain in my arse at the end of the clip.

What? You didn’t think you would be blessed with some Hanzo gameplay as well? Don’t we spoil you…

This is an accurate representation of scatter arrow. We think you’ll agree.

You can see what I mean about the arrow getting stuck at the start of this clip. The guinea pig was a nice touch to really tie the film together.

You really have to check out the bloopers at the bottom of this post. The scatter arrow footage is my favourite blooper, so much went wrong…

We can’t miss out Hanzo’s legendary ultimate either.

Ryū Ga Waga Teki O Kurau…

We only had one shot at this because we’d been filming for hours. After you’ve watched it I’ll tell you the funny details.

We were getting tired, and it was the last scene we needed before we could pack it in.

We didn’t want to have to duct tape the snake onto me over and over again because that would have taken ages.

Scowy did a good job with the duct tape for the snake, and if you listen quietly you can here me let out a groan of pain.

Ripping that tape off stung like a bitch! But I put on brave face for you all.

Willow (the pup) did not want to cooperate with us. We ended up getting her too excited and she caught the “Zoomies”. We’ve been informed that she has a pirate outfit she wants to show off. Maybe next time?

Make sure you check out the bloopers as well, they’re gold:

End Note

We had a ton of fun with this project and the response we’ve gotten so far is overwhelmingly positive. Thank you for taking the time to read this far, it means a lot to us!

Check out our social media and get in touch with us, we love a good natter.

Which character do you want to see next?