Wanna know how to build your own Outer Wilds cosplay? Here's how I did it!
Doing things a little different here; this post isn't film or BTS related haha! But it is the BTS of how I built this cosplay. I've gotten a lot of questions about how I made it and haven't had the time to make a video about it. So here we go!
SUMMARY!
The Materials:
EVA foam
old trench coat from Goodwill
Halloween store props
Helmet
gloves
MC light
lots of paint
lots of glue
Fabric from Joannes
Worbla
motorcycle helmet visor
velcro
flexible pipe from home depot
flask, rope, bus seatbelt (or airplane seat belt)
What I made in order:
Helmet
cloak/poncho
coat
pants
boots
gloves
props
Nomai mask
lamp
backpack
Hardest parts
The reception.
How could I not make a cosplay of one of my fave indie games of all time?! Outer Wilds changed me as a person and I had to share with other OW fans. While the character is silent, their impact is immense. I'm ready to explore the universe and meet some new friends and...myself?! And I'm honestly incredibly proud with how accurate this cosplay turned out. Here's how I did it.
The Helmet
Halloween store astronaut helmet taken apart. Same helmet as Astro too.
Cut it up a bit to help shape later.
Make a "frame" for the visor
Now make that frame out of craft foam!
Looking pretty decent! Now for the antenna.
First time I used worbla. I was imitating the silver metal they used in-game, then used more foam for the golden end and the attachment part to the helmet.
For added support, I made sure the worbla was going through the ring that attaches to the helmet.
Add some more foam circles to mimic rotating gear, then add a foam handle on the top of the helmet (literally just cut up foam tubes you can get online) and bwam! This helmet's almost ready!
I experimented a lot with visors. In fact I think I bought 3 or 4 of them (would not recommend). I tried cheaper covid mask visors, fish bowls with film, nothing was working. I eventually landed on using a goldish gradient motorcycle helmet visor. The visor was technically too small to fit the whole helmet, but with the costume on and the cloak/poncho covering the bottom of the visor, no one will notice a thing! (reference below).
I added 4 or 5 velcro patches towards the bottom of the helmet to help secure it to the cloak. But I'll cover that more below.
My next step was to attach a tube from your hardware store, then paint the whole helmet!
Mission complete!
The Body
The body didn't take as long as the helmet (which always seems to happen for some reason.)
The poncho cloak thing was just fabric I bought at Joannes. I got a huge roll of it, then watched a few cloak and poncho making tutorials to create the overall shape. I also made a "scarf" and sewn that into the poncho along with sewing random parts of the poncho to itself to give it some wrinkles. I weathered it to create that "old used" look by cutting and shaping the scarf, then using (I think) a cheese grater and a pocket knife to flare the ends of the fabric. I later painted the fabric just a bit, mostly through light spray paint, and splashed some coffee over it and bwam, it's all dirty and worn up!
The last step was adding some of those velcro patches from before and sticking them to the cloak. Considering I didn't want anyone to see through the opening of the helmet and visor, and I wanted to be as accurate to the game model as possible, I glued one set of the velcro to the helmet and sewn the other side to the cloak. This way, the position of the cloak stays perfect just at the visor's position...kinda like in a popped collar sort of way. Nice.
For the jacket, I found a trench coat at goodwill and gutted everything inside.
Trust me, you want everything to be as breezy as possible! Most cons are during summer or are indoors and it gets hot FAST! So I took out everything inside the trench coat, just leaving the outer shell. The trench coat had the perfect color I was looking for, along with offering a nice older fabric material, and plenty of length to cut into. Plus the overall jacket looked a little baggy.
For the belt, I used a seat belt for a bus or plane demonstration prop, then sharpied it brown...it arrived blue. But it works perfectly for the costume!
There are a few other misc props I'm missing in this photo like the flask and rope, but those were easy to create. The flask was bought on amazon, and the rope holder is just big a PVC pipe cut up, with some hooks screwed into the PVC, carabiners attached to the hooks, which attaches to the belt. And the rope is just thin rope glued onto the PVC.
Here I am testing to see if this tube's length would work.
Tada! The body!
The pants were just an older pair of brown ones I already had. I took a random loose piece of fabric from the trench coat remains and fabric-glued the patch onto the pants.
The boots were....expensive. The most expensive part of this whole thing...I believe they were actual hiking boots and a green color, but they had the perfect shape and look! So I spray painted them brown, sharpied the back of the boots black, then bought orange laces and replaced the original. Close up photo below.
The socks were easy. In fact, I cut holes into them so they're more like ankle warmers. This way, my feet aren't over heating while wearing these boots (yes, I'm still wearing normal socks while wearing these boots).
Next, the smaller costume bits!
The gloves were a lot easier than I imagined! I created a paper pattern tracing around my hand in a "live long" formation (I always seem to be making costumes based on two-fingered aliens). Then I actually used a halloween store astronaut pair of gloves for the main body of the glove. I did cut out the original fingers, stuck the new gloves through the whole, then hand sewed and glued the two together. Rinse and repeat for the other hand.
I also wrapped the end of the astronaut gloves with foam tubes along with other EVA foam pieces, and painted them silver to match the costume.
Then I made the patches! I couldn't find a place to buy the patches from in time, nor would they ship in time for the con, so I just took some fabric and tried my best at recreating the logo myself with canvas fabric and fabric markers. At a glance, they look great! But up close, it's a bit...jank. But these aliens also have a space ship held together by duct tape. Let's embrace the jank!
The Props
(this is my workstation! During summer, I'm out-doors spraying paint and using toxic fumes...I'm sure it's fine. Wear a mask, everyone.)
We're looking good so far! We're getting some weathering in there, got the costume essentially at a "good enough" point, let's build some props!
The orange bag you see there is a cheap (weirdly not so cheap technically) sleeping bag, rolled up and spray painted for weathering. Only one part of it is painted, so unrolled, it looks mega weird XD
This gets strapped to my backpack later.
Next was the Nomai mask! I went with this because it's such an iconic visual. And sure enough, a lot of people recognized me for the mask first, then the rest of the costume! (ignoring the rest of the "Among Us?" comments).
I got the foam pattern from Punished Props!
They have an amazing tutorial on how to create it.
Thanks Bill and the team for creating this amazing template!! It made this job so much easier. Check out their video for a detailed breakdown on how to build this mask.
It now lives mounted in my home and I love it.
From here, I technically went to Emerald City Comic Con in full costume and everyone loved it! But the job wasn't over yet. I had a costume and prop representing the base game and Nomai, but I loved the DLC for the game so much, I needed to make something to represent the owlks too. And I had one week before flying out for Dragon Con! (This was in 2022, just post-covid, so ECCC hosted their event in the summer for once).
I went with the Owlks lamp because I wanted to challenge myself and create a nifty prop I could use. The original idea was to use their other lamp that can sharpen its light. But I went with a safer option due to time restrictions and I felt this would survive a trip on a plane.
SO! I created this lamp using a plastic bottle that, I think, is meant for crafts...I think it's suppose to hold paint. But I cut out the base and created EVA foam shapes around the top and bottom similar to how the in-game model looks. I made sure there was enough space on the bottom to fit a cheap LED puck light that was set to green. Seal the EVA foam, paint it brown, give it some wooden markings, and done!
Now attach everything together!
It's a little jank, but honestly it fits the roll so well.
I had some left over leather patches, slapped those onto the costume here and there. I also created a flag of the OW logo and attached it to my selfie stick. I also bought heavy duty rope and made a hoop/sling
I used my Peak Design 40L backpack to house everything, used its straps to attach the mask onto the back of the backpack, and another pair for the sleeping bag. While it's not a jetpack (yet), it works for cons wonderfully since I can store food, merch purchases and other goodies in there!
And I think that's it! Check out the cosplay I made vs the concept art below:
Oh I forgot, I did buy a foam axe too. But with conventions, I figured it's best not to bring "everything" just in case.
----
Thanks for reading, everyone! I had a blast making this cosplay. And if you haven't played Outer Wilds, please give it a shot. It may change how you see the universe and strengthen your bonds with your friends.
If you want to see the costume alive in video, here's my link: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_iOpHlc_7E4
If I can help answer any other questions you guys have, feel free to reach out via twitter DMing or emailing me through this site!