Costume: EDI

Series: Mass Effect 3

Construction Time: 2 months

Cost: $115.65
Materials and Construction: Rayon/Lycra, 4 way Metallic Spandex, Fabric Paint, Hot Glue, Sport Zipper, 12 gauge vinyl, vinyl glue, Heelless Shoes (modded), Craft Foam, Velcro, Bra, Soda Bottle, Face Paint, Loooots of Eye Shadow Log

Debut: A-Kon 24 (2013)

Final Appearance: AnimeFest 2013 (then it evolved to EDI 1.5)

Worklog

EDI is a first for me. I've done robot cosplays, I've done body suits and I've worked with all these materials before but this is the first time I've done a cosplay simply because someone asked me to do it without really knowing much about the character or series. The only other time I've ever done a cosplay because someone asked was Gracia Hughes and even then my friend who was going to be Hughes never did it and I was a huge fan of Fullmetal Alchemist and Gracia. While I'd heard of the Mass Effect series I'd never heard of EDI or played any of the games. Needless to say I was hesitant since it'd be investing a lot of work into a character I didn't know. But the design was neat and would be a fun challenge and the YouTube videos I could find of in game scenes with EDI made her seem pretty cool. So I struck a deal, if he'd buy the shoes necessary for the costume I'd do it. I really only had $100 for this year's costumes and I knew the shoes would put me over that. I sent him an eBay link a few days after A Mat and had the shoes soon after.

I had originally planned to make EDI in a month (April) since I had a secondary job bid lined up for May and I needed this by A-Kon (end of May). Due to health issues I didn't have much crafting time in April but the job I'd planned to do in May got pushed back to after summer so I spent most of my May working on her and finished her in the hotel room the Thursday night before the con officially started.

As for major design features... The helm is constructed primarily of 2mm craft foam which I then covered in 4 way spandex. It's a two piece construction, the top pewter portion with the ear covers and visor and then the under structure which is covered in silver. It wasn't terribly difficult, just a lot of finessing to get all the lines and covers as smooth as possible. It also has a chin strap to hold it as close around my face as possible. The bodysuit is almost completely one piece, the gloves velcro on and the larger vinyl overlays also velcro on but otherwise I'm literally just getting zipped into a bodysuit. I'm really happy with that, everything stayed in place fairly well excepting some of those vinyl overlays which weren't attached. Covering the cups of the bra in spandex was a total pain but it worked out very well and with the straps of the bra being built into the suit it helped to support all that foam and such that was glued to my chest.

And here I am with the Jeff Moreau cosplayer who asked me to do EDI. You have no idea how hard it was to not bust out laughing during some of these pictures. The most hilarious part of this shot is that I'm "picking up" the crippled sickly character with my irl crippled arm.

This costume was a serious hit at A-kon, I completely wasn't expecting it. I got so many compliments on the construction it really made my con. I had a number of people ask if they could take shots specifically of my shoes! I've started playing Mass Effect too (so much fun, I may be falling in love with Garrus or as I affectionately call him, Mr. Kitty Face) and I really look forward to meeting EDI in game. She seems pretty cool in YouTube videos of scenes but I look forward to having my Shep chat her up. :)

Edi's Folder

Here's all my paper stuff for EDI, so most of the receipts, a spending log sheet, reference photos that I worked off of (b/w) and reference photos for if I want to enter a contest (color) as well as my design notes.

Edi didn't have too too much in the way of design sketches, just that main one sheet I did at Anime Matsuri when asked to do EDI (mainly to see if I could figure out if I could do it) and then a post it note I doodled on when I got some inspiration at work. All that text written on that reference image was also thought through at work and made sure to write down so when I went home to work on her I'd remember all the good ideas I'd had.

This costume involved the most outside help out of all of mine, simply because I cannot paint my own back, luckily I had the wonderful Natsume Ryu to help me out on that after we got our hotel room.

There's a few things left to do/redo:

Finish the vinyl overlays of the torso

Perforate all the vinyl overlays so they don't fog up

Make/acquire a gun