Dark Elf Wytch Build Log

Welcome to this post detailing how I crafted my Dark Elf Wytch cosplay, from the (since long defunct) game Warhammer Online. I've repainted the entire armour and also re-styled the wig, as well as remade the crown since the initial build, but the original is what I'll focus on here.

For being quite an advanced build, I took a bit less photos of the process than expected - mostly since I was crunching this quite a lot in order to manage it for Volta in Cosplay 2023. So yeah, this is another long overdue log.

I had thought of making this cosplay way back in 2009, but never quite felt like I had the skills necessary to really make it work. But two years ago (at the time of initially writing this log) I decided it was time.

Let's start with the wig, as it's an absolutely ridiculous amount of work put into it!

I started out with a basic black lacefront wig from WigIsFashion (not sponsored).

I then straightened the wig and added in an absolutely unhinged amount of wefts, I think ... 6 whole packs when the whole thing was done. I glued these in using fabric glue as I really did not have the energy to sew them all.

I then braided the whole thing in slim tight braids, and gave it a light boil. I did the boiling very gently so as to not make all of the glue disintegrate.

After having unleashed the braids, I had a sneaking suspicion I might have messed up...

....which was confirmed once I had brushed the entire thing out and it basically expanded massively. So after this I spent a LONG time flattening all of the lengths of the hair, keeping some of the volume and texture at the roots to give it a good amount of volume for the final style while still being manageable.

The final things to do was to section it into all the different ponytails, and add the gold bangles. This wig is VERY heavy to wear, and I use about 20-30 hairpins to keep it fixed when I wear it.

Next let's take a look at the fabric work. There's not a whole lot of it in this build, so I really tried to make it crisp.

I decided to make a mesh bra in order to have something that the boobsquiggle-armour and also the "shoulder" pieces could attach to. This was my first time making any type of underwear, so I purchased a pattern for a model I found reasonable for my purpose and a kit of materials from a Swedish shop specializing in custom underwear supplies (bwear.se , not sponsored).

After having cut and tested my mock-up, I started in the nude mesh fabric.

The whole assembly process required a lot of delicate sewing, both on machine and by hand.

The end result came out quite well, and I decided to have the straps be removeable so I could pull them through any armour pieces necessary.

The other fabric part(s) are the front and back flaps. For these I chose a dark purple satin duchesse fabric, and dip dyed it for the gradient.

I actually made the flaps twice, as the initial dye just kept bleeding when I ironed on my vinyl appliqués. And also the fact that the first vinyl appliqués also didn't come out quite the way I wanted as I both drew and cut them by hand. For the second version I used my silhouette and digitally rendered the pattern and then ironed it on which resulted in a more clean and symmetrical appearance of the gold details.

One of the first flaps. In order to finish the edges, I "cut" them with a soldering iron, which simultaneously melts the fabric in order to stop the edges from fraying. This was in my opinion the best solution to get a clean edge without any extra bulk or folds.

For the stockings...socks? The thigh highs, I chose a stretch faux leather, and used a previous leggings pattern as my base to draft them.

After pinning them to ensure the fit and length, I basted them and stitched them on my overlock. In the top hem, I added an elastic with silicone to ensure that they'd stay up in the proper position once worn.

The final pieces to add was the decorated leather section and straps. I attached it with studs and also upgraded this piece for a later wear, having the gold decoration as a foam piece glued onto the leather instead of simply a painted decoration.

For the sleeves, I used the same method as for these thigh-highs including the elastic to ensure that they stay put where they're supposed to.

Next I'd like to talk about the daggers! I know there's only one in the concept art, but normally Wytches tend to have two daggers so I made two.

I started with figuring out how the entire dagger would most likely look, considering there are some parts not visible in the concept art I used as reference.

I then upscaled and printed my template, and cut it out

I then traced the contours of the pattern onto High Density EVA foam and cut out 4 pieces of it. I carved a channel in the middle of all the pieces to insert fibreglass rods - this is to add stability to the daggers while keeping them slim and lightweight.

After gluing the bases together, I sanded down the shape a bit and covered in Worbla. I then added additional detail in 2mm EVA foam on the top of the blades, and freehand sculpted the shapes in worbla around the "guard" and "pommel".

After I was happy with the sculpting, I primed both daggers in a couple of layers of woodglue, painted them, added some faux leather to the handles and some layers of clear-coat spray varnish.

Finally we reach the armour, which is the majority of the build to be fair.

I've used mostly the same technique for all pieces, which is to sandwich 2mm EVA foam between Worbla. In some cases I have also used Tibra Tex (?) as I happened to have a lot of this material and it has a texture I don't quite like with the sort of mesh - up until this point I had never really figured out any way to use it because of this aspect to the material. But any way you slice it, the technique remains the same of foam sandwiched between sheets of harder termoplastic material.

As usual, I started by taking out all my pattern pieces in construction paper.

I then drew out all of the shapes needed on 2mm EVA foam as well as on the thermoplastic sheets. For the thermoplastics I added a small margin so I could ensure that the plastics would stick together well on all edges.

I then heated up each piece little by little and trimmed the excess with a pair of scissors while still hot. This makes the thermoplastics merge nicely together in the edges. I then heated the entire piece up and sculpted it into the shape desired, and added the edge trims using one layer of thermoplastic strips.

Here are some of the other pieces in the process of shaping and detailing. For the backpiece I used Thibra to add on the detailing, and placed the entire thing on my mannequin to shape it to fit properly on my body.

I then primed all of the pieces with a couple layers of woodglue and painted. For the reworked version of the armour I've added silver rune details on all the pieces as well as covering the whole thing in clear-coat varnish.

The skull in the front of the ensemble is made out of low density foam stacked in several layers for the base shape, and then I've used foamclay to bring out all the details. I've primed this in cosbond as I wanted it to have some flexibility especially for the long "teeth" in front. It's later painted using acrylics.

The tiara is made using 2mm high density eva foam in layers, with some worbla on the inside so it would keep the structure and shape. The horns are also made in EVA foam, to keep the entire thing as lightweight as possible. It has a resin cast crystal in front. The horns were remade and upgraded later on as well.

The original tiara

The upgraded tiara!

I think that's about it for all I did in order to create the costume. It attaches through a lot of different straps and hidden snaps, and surprisingly the design itself is not as hard to manage as I first thought in this aspect. It's a bizarre design to make in real-life, but I'm very pleased with the outcome. As usual, you can head on to see the fancy photoshoot photos here! https://www.darkesttearsdesign.com/wytch-elf-warhammer