Cosplay Crafting Writeup | Draka from World of Warcraft: Shadowlands

My Draka cosplay has been a project in the works for a few months now, and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out! I always struggled with the idea of creating my own cosplays, as I realized over the years that I don’t really enjoy sewing. My favorite parts to craft for cosplay has always been things like props, makeup, and wigs!

With the release of the latest World of Warcraft expansion Shadowlands I fell in love with the character Draka, a character that is a fighter in so many different ways. Not just a fighter in combat, Draka also fought things like illness, perceptions of her society, fought for love, and fought for her family in her life. Then in death she continued fighting, as she was part of Maldraxxus and a defender of the entire Shadowlands. She is truly the definition of the word strength, and I really admire that trait in her. She is definitely one of my characters that’s been featured in Shadowlands so far and I just knew I had to make her.

I was intimidated by her though. Not just her strength, but everything about her appearance! This cosplay would include body paint, fake teeth, wig styling, and the MASSIVE suit of armor. This was my first time ever crafting a full set of armor, so that was probably the most intimidating piece to me. In the past I had done small pieces of armor, but nothing as big and detailed as this. I was kind of worried at first, but after weeks of research, sketches, planning, and crafting I finally did it!

It all started at the start of December 2020. That was when I did my first initial sketches for this cosplay. I was still playing through the main Shadowlands story at that point, and decided to take my little goblin self and run around Draka in circles, obsessively taking screenshots of her. Every corner of her armor, every detail close up, and every angle I could think to grab. Then after filling up an entire folder of photos of her I went in to sketching. I essentially drew the same screenshots, filling multiple pages in my sketchbook with various drawings, diagrams, and deconstructions of her armor. Figuring out how many pieces there were, how they fit together, and what details were on each piece.

Baroness Draka- from a Goblin POV!!

From there I realized I didn't actually have any clue HOW to make those pieces though, even if I had a pretty good idea now of what the pieces all were. That was when I turned my attention to start finding a pattern I could use as a base. I ended up going with the Medieval Armor Pattern from Kinpatsu Cosplay for my base, and then modifying certain parts as I needed them changed. Some of my modifications included making additional layers for the pauldrons, making one of the pauldrons much larger than the other, adjusting the shape and size of the hip armor, among other adjustments. I also created the central belt pieces entirely myself. I also want to give a huge shout out here to my friend Vicious Frockery, who helped explain the pattern to me! Having not much past sewing experience, I didn't exactly know how to read a pattern when I first got this. Vi really helped break it down for me and I'm so thankful for their help with this! Vi is an incredibly talented cosplayer and crafter themselves, and you guys should definitely go check out their work if you haven't already!

The next step would be figuring out everything I needed. Sourcing and pricing materials, hoping that I actually calculated the right amount of materials for everything that I needed. Having it all finished now I gotta say, I was really close with my calculations on that end! All I had to order while working on the cosplay was an additional bucket of foam clay! Actually now that I mention it, I should probably go over those materials.

The materials used on this project include:

• Yaya Han 5mm EVA foam
• Barge Contact Cement
• The Foamory Foam Clay
• Green Resin Gem from @ElementOfSupplies
• Aluminum Foil
• Plastidip Spray
• Acrylic Paint
• Fake Leather (already owned from a previous project)
• Scarecrow Fangs "Sabers"
• Silicone Elf Ear Cuffs
• Mehron Paradise Makeup
• Invisible Zipper
• Velcro
• Fabric Straps
• Plastic Buckles
• Purple Fabric (already owned from a previous project)

Then it was just ordering all of the materials and waiting for everything to come in! Which to be honest... the materials did kind of sit around in my room for a little while before I kicked my butt into actually working on everything. At that point I was kind of scared that this would turn into yet ANOTHER cosplay project that I partially started and never got around to finishing- which would really suck after spending as much as I did on the materials. But lucky for me I was able to get some of that focus back and get started on the actual construction!

Now "con crunch" is definitely NOT a good thing, but I think giving myself some kind of deadline was really helpful in keeping myself focused and on task while working on this. Over at Cosplay Realm we were getting things in gear to start taking submissions for our Crafting issue, which would focus on the art of cosplay crafting and the different types of crafting that go into cosplay construction. I knew I wanted to have my Draka cosplay complete enough to be printed in this issue of the magazine! So with that goal in mind I decided to start with the top and work my way down.

Construction for this cosplay started in the middle of January 2021, and I decided to vlog as much of the process as I could! I thought this would be fun both as a way of showing my process to others who may want to craft a similar project, but also as a good way of documenting the project for myself. I'm sure some day way in the future I'll look back on this with fond memories seeing how far I have come!

The entire vlog series has been documented and 3 out of the 4 parts are currently up on my YouTube channel (part 4 will be up later this week!)

After crafting the entire cosplay I got ready to do my little self shoot! I was cramped for space in my tiny apartment, but had enough room to stick up my backdrop and some lighting for this. Probably the hardest part of shooting this was trying to come up with poses. The costume is comfortable enough and it isn't super heavy, but it also isn't exactly the most flexible thing ever.

Still I did it! I met my goal! I got the cosplay complete enough to shoot it for the Crafting issue of Cosplay Realm Magazine!! (Which by the way, is available now if you want to see me in print!) I got it complete enough for the shoot, but I also still have plenty more I can do on it. I don't see that as a bad thing though! I've had SO much fun working on this cosplay and it has really reinvigorated so much passion and creativity in me, that I was kind of sad when it was coming to an end! I have a lot more I can do though, from polishing what I already have done and perfecting things or adding more detail, to creating other pieces of the armor that I haven't made yet (I still have not even touched her knee armor or boots!) and I would also love to craft props of her weapons in the future too!

I’m still staring at this cosplay kind of in shock that I actually made this whole thing myself, and I can’t wait to do more shoots as her and eventually wear her to a convention! I think this project has also unlocked a new love of mine, and I am so excited to build more armor based cosplays in the future!

Here are some more photos of my cosplay as well as some detail shots to show off the crafting! I'm really proud of all the work I put into this and like I said, I'm so inspired to do more like this again soon!