DOOM (2016)
The High Five – Nathan DeLuca’s DOOM Marine Cosplay
DOOM (2016)
Nathan DeLuca knows a thing or two about ripping and tearing.
After all, the 26-year-old professional cosplayer is an expert at destroying demons and crafting costumes. As a huge fan of DOOM, DeLuca took on the task of suiting up as the game’s iconic DOOM Marine for his latest costume, and the end result was truly out of this world.
In our latest Bethesda High Five, we chatted with Nathan about the process of creating his impressive Praetor Suit costume, and learned what it’s like to bring the DOOM Marine to life through cosplay.
1. What inspired you to cosplay as the DOOM Marine?
Honestly, DOOM has been part of my life for over twenty years. I first picked up the game in 1996 (an accidental educational game purchase by my parents came with the demo for Knee Deep in the Dead), and it became the first videogame I ever played and loved. The DOOM Marine costume has been on my to-do list for a long time and arguably has been my favorite passion project, but it took a long time to get to the level where I thought I could do it justice. The 2016 DOOM game gave me an excuse to finally bring it to fruition.
Also, the DOOM Marine is a badass.
2. Was it difficult to capture the look of the Praetor Suit while making sure it was wearable? From the helmet’s visor to the articulation of the gloves, it looks like you balanced that perfectly.
It wasn’t too hard thankfully! The designers put a lot of care into making sure everything was articulated and functional. The design lends itself to being worn and moved around in.
It took about two weeks to get it to the point where it was wearable - however the redos until I was satisfied (two more versions of the helmet, two more versions of the shoulder and four different guns) tacked an extra week and a half onto it. I’d hazard a guess at almost a month, on and off!
Before doing anything, I made sure I’d tracked down the collectibles in-game, which had the 3D model for the armor and the various guns I needed to make. Using the screen as a reference, I drew out the armor and patterned it onto sheets of half-inch EVA foam, extrapolating the pieces and layers on paper before cutting it out of the material itself. Following the in-game model viewer, patterning was quite intuitive.
When the armor pieces were finished, I applied Rosco’s Flexbond to all of the exposed foam pieces, sealing the pores for painting. I decided to paint the entire thing with Straken Green. It took about four or five cans to do the entire suit – the darker green areas were done with Castellan Green, and the silver with Leadbelcher. I weathered the edges with acrylics, as well as blackwashing and adding gradients.
I scaled the helmet to my head (unsuccessfully the first time) and printed it in two pieces on my Formbot T-Rex 3D Printer. I welded the two sides together with a soldering iron, before adding a thin layer of auto-body filler to the outside. After several layers of auto-body filler to mask the seams, each one sanded smooth, I started using Rust-Check spot putty and basting the entire helmet, pausing between coats to wet sand with 220-grit wet sandpaper. After the surface was free of pockmarks, I hit it with a few layers of filler primer, wet-sanded with 400 and 800-grit sandpaper, and painted the entire helmet with Krylon Italian Olive spray paint. The rest of the details were cut in with a hand file, and painted directly onto the helmet.
3. Possibly the coolest feature of your costume is that you added a built-in speaker system. Couldn’t stay away from the game’s soundtrack, could you?
After hearing Mick Gordon’s brilliant DOOM soundtrack, there’s no way I could have had the outfit without having the music blasting along with it. Luckily during the parts breakdown, I noticed the two objects on the back left and right of his belt looked a lot like speakers, so this solved two problems in one go: having objects that were near-identical to the unknown items on his belt, and being able to play “Flesh and Metal” wherever I go.
4. Have you shown off your DOOM Marine armor yet? And are there any additions you’re dying to build?
So far I’ve only made it out to Montreal Comiccon with it before the suit was ready, but in its finished state I’m planning on bringing it to Dragon Con, maybe New York Comic Con, Hal-Con and a few others. QuakeCon is definitely on my list in the future.
I initially meant to craft just the Super Shotgun and the Chainsaw, but I’ve kind of been running with it. After finishing the Plasma Rifle and Pistol, I’m probably going to try to finish the Combat Shotgun and Chainsaw. The BFG and Gauss Rifle would be amazing, but a bit too resource intensive – for now! Other than that, I think I just need to replace the boots and it’ll be where I want it!
5. Outside of the DOOM Marine, have you created or do you plan on creating any other Bethesda Softworks related cosplay?
Oh man, where do I start! Joseph Oda from The Evil Within. A Lone Wanderer from Fallout 4. I’m intently watching the development of both Quake Champions and Prey to see what comes of that (the original Prey was one of my favorite games as a teenager so revisiting that would be amazing). I’m also a fan of Wolfenstein – both The New Order and The Old Blood were amazing. I think it’s safe to say that yes, I’ll be doing a lot more Bethesda-related stuff in the future!
A big thanks to Nathan for sharing his DOOM Marine cosplay with us. Be sure to check out more of Nathan’s cosplay photos on his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. If you’re interested in having your community creation featured in a future installment of the Bethesda High Five, let us know on social with the #BethesdaHighFive hashtag.
Photos courtesy of snowfallmedia.com
