Warrior tier 8, Conqueror’s Siegebreaker Battlegear, was kind of a weird cosplay decision for me. I have never mained a warrior in World of Warcraft, though I did enjoy my alt, but I didn’t have a huge personal connection to this set like my previous ones. I chose this because I realized while working on my warlock that I enjoyed armor and prop crafting much, much more than sewing and fabrics. I specifically sought out something that would allow me to do full armor. I also wanted to challenge myself to do something more revealing, as my previous costumes had been more conservative. I did Snow Bunny Nidalee earlier in the same year to test the waters, and found I was surprisingly comfortable with that level of “uncovered”, so I platekini-fied this warrior set. This allowed there to be no sewing at all involved, except for a few straps. 

This cosplay was constructed using various thicknesses of EVA foam, including floor mats for the shin and shoes, 2mm for armor pieces, and TNT Cosplay Supplies foam for the knee section. The horns and axe blades are Worbla-wrapped pink insulation foam. This was the first real extensive work I did with a Dremel, but I was already fairly experienced with regular or brown Worbla by this point. All of the strapping for this costume was done using D-Rings and a brown string that matched the color scheme. In retrospect, this was not the best choice, but it worked well enough. This costume also marked the first time I did the entirety of the wiring on my own, as my dad helped me with my warlock wiring. 

One of the things I am most proud of on this costume is the extensive battle damage. All of the damage was cut into the Worbla and foam prior to priming with XTC-3D, then painted first with white and then with black to make sure it all popped properly. I also managed to maintain a decent balance between altering the design to my liking and still keeping it very accurate. However, the costume was miserable to wear. The shoulders were precariously balanced and attached through several D-rings inside the shoulders and on the breastplate, leading to me using my muscles to adjust them far too often. The helmet was not well fitted and had to be jammed on, and I could only see blurry red out of the eyes and clear out the bottom of the helmet. The thigh armor cut the opposite leg due to sharp edges and repeated rubbing during the day. 
On top of all of that, the worst failure I had to deal with was the axe. On the walk over to Blizzcon from the hotel, I noticed the axe began wobbling at its disconnect point. We immediately went to the cosplay repair lounge to glue it to try to make it more secure, then walked all the way across the convention center to check in for the contest. After that, we watched the opening ceremony, then went back up to attempt more repairs. A huge heap of gorilla glue was thrown into the joint between the two pieces, and then it was a rush down to judging, rush to group photo shoot, rush to back stage call time. It was a very hard day for me in such a difficult costume. The failure was due to the wooden dowel being a soft wood, resulting in the embedded attachment coming loose. It was repaired using Worbla, but to this day is still coming loose again. Material choice is important! Be sure to get hard wood dowels!