Katarina The Sinister Blade (Mercenary Skin) from League of Legends

Cosplayer/Make Up/Costume: Eve Estenzia

I did Katarina because I love assassins first of all. I also love female characters that have a kind of beauty you feel is unreachable, the beauty Katarina has and the way she moves and looks is so sexy but you know that a move closer to her brings you death.

This persona is the complete opposite of me, I’m all sparkly and cute, so I saw it as a challenge to become a different person with that costume, a more badass and aggressive side of me, I chose the Mercenary skin because first of all here in Greece I only saw the clasic skin so I wanted to do another skin and secondly it was like Blizzard and Riot made a compination and really love it, I felt really cool the truth is, but I was still looking like I couldn’t even hurt a fly!

The most basic material was Eva foam which is a thermoplastic. I firstly made the patterns, draw them on the EVA sheet, cut the shape and used Dremel, which is a small tool that helps you creat battle damage or in this case smooth surfaces. After that I used heatgun that has a very high temperature and makes the EVA flexible so you can give to it the shape you desire. Lastly I primed the surface with wood glue to prepare it for paint and used silver acrylics. I also used black and white paints on top of the silver to make it look as realistic as possible.

The studs for the hands and the legs are made from clay. I made a mistake here and I used air dry clay instead of polymeric so this parts are very fragile. Air dry clay are good only for creating molds.

The jacket and the leggings are from litherrite. The belts are litherrite sewed on EVA. The last part were the blades which I made from blue foam, after that I coveres them with papier mâché and painted them.

One of the things that took very long to be made were the swords, because Katarina has 5 freaking swords and I had to repeat this painfull process five times.

The first convention I entered with this costume was ComicDom Con 2015 and the second one was on AthensCon. People were really excited because it’s a very popular character and most of them thought at first that it was a character from Blizzard, which is kindo of truth that’s why I like this skin.

The first part of the photoshoot took place in a small forest which was near the photographer’s apartment and I chose this place because it was very similar to the in game fighting arena (Summoner’s Rift).

The second part was done at the photographer’s studio in order to add some cool photos at the backround that look like the city Katarina came from (Noxus).

I learned what cosplay was when I was 14, that was the time I started watching anime. When I was 16 a friend of mine saw an cosplay party on Facebook and she suggested me to go together. I then then threw some black clothes together, I sewed some zippers on the t-shirt and I went to the party as Misa Amane from the anime Death Note. That was where I felt for the first time that I belonged in a community and that this thing I something that I really loved doing. I spent one year meeting new cosplayers and going to conventions as a viewer and at a point I felt ready to make a costume and take part in a competition after that i found what makes me complete and happy.

Cosplayer: Eve Estenzia

May 28, 2016