Ready to get in the Halloween spirit? In this edition of Last Word on Gaming’s video game cosplay series, we spoke with some horror video game cosplayers. Here you can learn a bit about them, their love for the respective game franchises, and the incredible effort they put into their costumes.
Horror Video Game Cosplayers
SuperSailorVirgo – Lady Dimitrescu/Donna & Angie – Resident Evil Village
Last Word on Gaming – Have You Always Been a Fan of Horror Games?
“The first game that I played that really hooked me with the horror genre was EternalDarkness, Sanity’s Requiem for the GameCube. I loved that the horror element is psychological, the way it messed with your mind blew me away! This was basically my gateway horror game into the genre, truly feeling a love and appreciation for the games that spiked my blood pressure.”
Last Word on Gaming – What Drew You to the Resident Evil Games?
“Man, there is just something amazing about classic Resident Evil. The cheesy voice acting and dialogue, the camera angles, the limited typewriter saves… I have such great nostalgic feelings for the series throughout all of its changes and evolutions. My first RE game was ResidentEvilZero, followed by RE3 and then RE4. I loved the action/adventure spin on RE4 and recognized that this was a game series that was always going to try to keep reinventing itself, and I was totally on board to see where they went next.”
Last Word on Gaming – What Inspired You to Cosplay the Lady Dimitrescu and Donna/Angie?
“When the RE Village trailer first dropped, Lady Dimitrescu emerged and was immediately an icon. Without super clear images of what her outfit looked like, I threw something together to resemble our Vampire Mommy. I love that this villain is a large, commanding, beautiful monster woman!”
“When the game actually came out and I played through it – I was really invested in Donna’s story and level. It was absolutely horrifying, but also really sad. I knew I had to make an Angie doll!”
Last Word on Gaming – What Was the Build Process Like?
“For Lady Dimitrescu, like I said, lack of clear images in the very beginning before the game came out was challenging but I threw it together in two days! A little bit of thrift shopping, sewing, and using things I already had. I’m working on a more up to date accurate version now.”
“For Donna and Angie – I had a blast building a creepy doll. Donna’s cosplay is actually really simple but the time-consuming part was building her partner in crime. Took a lot of paint, sewing, and deconstruction! I also built Angie a mechanism in the back of her head to move her mouth so I can puppeteer her too.”
You can keep up with SuperSailorVirgo and other horror game cosplayers on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok.
WildSparrowCosplay – Bubblehead Nurse – Silent Hill 2
Photo Credit / WildSparrowCosplay
Last Word on Gaming – Have You Always Been a Fan of Horror Games?
“Yes! Even as a young child watching cartoons, I gravitated towards the Halloween episodes. In the older Zelda games, I was most fascinated by the Bottom of the Well and the Shadow Temple. And I always played as the Zurge in Starcraft. I loved the thrill of working through jump scares, macabre maps, and crazy-looking monsters. I have fond memories of watching thrillers with my mom when no one else was home.”
Last Word on Gaming – What Drew You to the Silent Hill Games?
“I first played SilentHill on the PSP with my brother and a friend. We would turn out all the lights, hunch around the tiny screen, and jump, screaming at every new monster that popped out of the mist. I was drawn to the darkness and fear of the Silent Hill games. I had never seen anything like those monsters and I wanted to know the story. Then, for years, I didn’t play or think about the franchise at all. In the summer of this year, I was planning to go to a horror convention and needed a costume. Someone suggested the Silent Hill Nurse and this intrigued me immediately. The Nurse had been a dream of mine for some time and I loved the design.”
Photo Credit / WildSparrowCosplay
Last Word on Gaming – What Inspired You to Cosplay The Bubblehead Nurse?
“Shortly after deciding that the Bubblehead Nurse was the character I wanted to make next, I learned that my mom was very ill. It was extremely sudden. One day she was fine and the next she was in the ER. I immediately flew out to be with her but she never woke up. I spent a tense and sad week with her in the hospital as her condition worsened. Eventually, my family and I had to make the unimaginably difficult decision to turn off life support and let her go.”
“When I returned home, I plunged into work as a distraction from the grief. I became more interested than ever in the Silent Hill series. I listened to lectures on it, read character bios, fan theories, and monster explanations. I worked almost constantly on the costume, hand painting every tiny detail until it was perfect. The reason for my obsessive interest and tireless energy did not dawn on me until the day I finished it. Like the protagonists of Silent Hill, I had manifested the grief, guilt, and devastation of my mother’s death in a real and physical way.”
“Every monster in Silent Hill is rooted in the trauma of the characters. In the town of Silent Hill, they have to fight the physical manifestations of their own psyche. Only by facing and accepting them can they leave the Hellscape and return to reality. In a similar way, I had to paint, draw, and create the elements of my own traumatic experience. My mind had to accept and cope with my own loss and create a new reality in which everything had changed.”
Last Word on Gaming – What Was the Build Process Like?
“I loved it! There were many small details and I excel at details. I wanted it to have an authentic hospital feel versus a “sexy Halloween costume.” So rather than making a tight spandex dress, I chose a real lab coat (which I sewed into a dress) and a real nurse hat. I soaked both of them in tea and coffee for several days to give them that old yellow and brown color. I learned many new techniques from this build. Such as that the best way to get realistic blood splatter is to dab a toothbrush in your watery paint mixture and run your finger over the bristles. This allows the paint to spray the costume in a spatter pattern. I used this technique all over my costume, trying to calculate where blood would spray while the Nurse was fighting the protagonists of the game.”
“My absolute favorite part was the mask. I watched all the mask tutorials I could find, looked at,s and messaged other cosplayers about what they liked about their masks and what they wished they had done differently. I researched many references and I took all of the research into account before I started the mask. I decided to use plaster because I wanted a hard surface I could easily take on and off. I also wanted it to sit far enough away from my face so I could breathe comfortably and see without my eyes being visible. It took two full rolls of plaster and around 7 coats of paint to finish the exterior. Then I painted the interior with Mod Podge to seal the fumes and flaky texture of the plaster. I installed soft foam pads on the top of the head and around the chin, making the mask comfortable to wear. The shoes were my dress uniform shoes from my time in the Marines. I made the knife out of sanded craft foam with barbecue skewers in the center for stability. The entire costume is hand-painted with acrylics and it took me roughly 2 months to finish. This is the fastest I have ever built a Cosplay and it’s my favorite costume that I have made and an overall cathartic experience.”
You can keep up with WildSparrowCosplay and other horror game cosplayers on Instagram.
Last Word on Gaming – Have You Always Been a Fan of Horror Games?
“I have always loved horror games, growing up I would jump at the chance to play any I could get my hands on. The love started with watching my mom play SuperCastlevania and stay up at night at my friend’s house playing Resident Evil 2 and 3. One of my fond memories is getting to play Silent Hill 4 on a demo disc in middle school it was amazing. I begged my mom for Resident Evil 4 when I was 12, and of course, when DeadSpace came out I was hooked. I could go on and on about my favorites like Silent Hill 2 and 3, Layers of Fear, and of course favorite game ever, Bloodborne!”
Last Word on Gaming – What Drew You to the Dead Space Games?
What drew me in was my love for Resident Evil 4. At the time rightfully that’s all it was compared to but I loved that gameplay and what Visceral did to upgrade on RE4’s formula was incredible to play. The immersive sound and terrifying encounters. At the time it was very scary and I loved every bit of it. Now that I have the whole game memorized, it may not scare me but I will always have that feeling. No matter how good I got at this game it still has the possibility to catch me off guard and I love that about Dead Space.
Last Word on Gaming – What inspired you to Cosplay Issac?
“I was inspired by the want to recreate my favorite characters and the 10th anniversary was coming up. At the time when I started this project, I was just thinking back to all the fun I had and how even long before I started cosplaying. I would daydream about being in the Ishimura wearing Isaac’s engineering suit. I learned a lot about how to make costumes my own way from my previous works and attempts and I felt ready to try and tackle the suit. I never would have thought it could take so long but I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.”
Last Word on Gaming – What Was the Build Process Like?
“The process to create Isaac was daunting and frustrating. Nothing about this project came easy. It took a lot of mental work to figure it all out on my own. I would carry a notepad wherever I went so I could write down notes any time they came to mind. It was the biggest artistic challenge I’ve ever faced. Creating the patterns and refining them after having to spend the time and resources to make the smallest adjustments just so they could be as accurate to the game model as possible.”
“It’s the small things that make this project the way it is. I would take long breaks if I was stuck on a part like the jumpsuit or LED work. I just wanted to be patient and not rush the final result. Anytime I put the project away I always thought about it and still wrote notes while I worked on other projects until the solutions would come to me. Either from practicing something and getter better at it like sewing or just having that “I got it” moment. It was a lot of work but I’m happy that through the 2 years since it started I never rushed it because I wanted to make something special, just like all of my other projects. They are labors of love and I wanted to make it as faithful to the original design as I could no matter how long it took or how many times I messed up. Artists learn by making mistakes and I learned a lot from making Isaac Clarke’s engineering suit.”
You can keep up with SunLightOfAstoria and other horror game cosplayers on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
HelloLaciJo – Big Sister – Bioshock
Photo Credit – HelloLaciJo
Last Word on Gaming – Have You Always Been a Fan of Horror Games?
“I didn’t really get into horror games until the Xbox360 came out and Bioshock caught my eye. I have been a huge fan of horror games ever since”
Last Word on Gaming – What Drew You to the Bioshock Games?
“A friend of mine was playing it and I was intrigued. So I went and picked a copy up for myself and was hooked!”
Photo Credit – HelloLaciJo
Last Word on Gaming – What inspired you to Cosplay A Big Sister?
“Bioshock is my favorite game series of all time. My sister is also a huge fan of the series. So since I am the oldest, and she is the youngest, we thought that cosplaying a BigSister and a LittleSister was kind of funny!”
Last Word on Gaming – What Was the Build Process Like?
“The build process was crazy. I made her cosplay as well as mine, and all the props. It took almost 3 months to complete and I was still working on it on the drive down to Awesomecon 2019, which is where we debuted it. I had never built such detailed props or worked with EVA foam in that capacity before.”
You can keep up with HelloLaciJo and other horror game cosplayers on Instagram.
Keeping Up With Horror Video Game Cosplayers and More
Dominic is an editor for Wrestling and a writer for Gaming. Dominic truly believes very few things connect people the way pro wrestling does. He loves going to shows (indie or not), and working with Warrior Wrestling. He has been a gamer since age 5, and is a big fan of RPGs and anything open-world. He owns many consoles and is planning a gaming PC very soon. He is also getting into the cosplay world as well. Dominic is a huge fan of heavy metal music (listening, going to shows, playing guitar, shopping for vinyl, CDs. etc), working with the student organization DECA, Star Wars, and comic books.
