I had wanted to cosplay Hanzo for a long time, but I was pretty intimidated by the whole costume, from the pretty specific fabrics to learning how to make and attach appliques, I knew it would be an uphill battle for me. Last year I ran across the now infamous image of Hanzo as a cat. I knew I absolutely had to cosplay this version of Hanzo, or affectionately called Nyanzo. I delved pretty deep into the basic designs of the costume making sure to include all of the classic elements of the original skin and the fanart. I knew everything needed to be cat themed.
Between my source material and the great cosplay guides that Blizzard had provided for all of the Overwatch heroes I was able to figure out the patterns and make themed changes to match the fanart.
The Stormbow was the biggest challenge. I own a 3D printer, so I knew I would be printing it from the start. I used files from Obsydiann Props over on facebook. Their files were basically the start of my Hanzo cosplans
I have printed quite a few things in the past, but I have never printed anything of this scale. I also had no Idea what the scale of the bow was until I had printed about 1/3rd of it
The bow stands end to end at 5'6" and I stand 5'3". I was pretty skeptical at this point. I had a few issues during the printing process with the large piece warping and some spaghetti mountain incidents. By far the biggest issue came with the stabilizer arm, my infill was too low and it ended up falling over and breaking off a week before the con
I took a huge step in my cosplay journey with this costume. I have never sewn a complete costume out of fabric prior to this. I used self made patterns for all of my sewn pieces. It was necessary for the unique styles of Hanzo's top along with making some quality of life improvements for the rest of the garments
As per the fanart, I knew this costume wouldnt feel complete without fuzzy paws. I wanted to make sure that the shoes would be accurate and be comfortable to walk in, so I did research and found tons of great tutorials within the fursuit crafting community
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Hanzo has plenty of small details that I wanted to be sure to include. I 3D printed the canisters from a file I found on Thingiverse, along with 3D modeling my belt clips. I was able to last minute print my knee armor thanks to the files I got from Carson Cosplay
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When I first found this fanart, I started to ask all of my cosplay friends if they wanted to be in an Overwatch group with me. SIMAT Cosplay was the first one to step up and made this Woody Mccree crossover to accompany my Nyanzo
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In closing, this was a costume that challenged me to be a better cosplayer and a better crafter. There were so many times through out the build I wanted to give up on it, or shelf it for another convention when I had more time. It is the most satisfying costume I have made, and I can't wait to wear it again
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