Ah Puch Cosplay (SMITE)

Hello! My name is Bear and this is my Ah Puch from the game, SMITE. He's from the Mayan pantheon and is nicknamed the "Horrific God of Decay". Sounds like a swell fella, right? Since he and I bear such a striking resemblance, the real question was how could I not?

Big thanks HiRez for making SMITE and all the teams: designers (Drybear), effects people, VAs, modelers, concept artists, and anyone else that worked on him and Smite! As well as HiRez Amanda for posting his cosplay kit and Weston Reid for this gallery! He's totally my favorite and I love him to stinky pieces.

Materials:

• EVA foam (various sizes)
• EPS foam (scraps from previous projects)
• Wire
• Veg and chrome tan leather
• Tissue linen
• Power net
• Sewing notions (nylon webbing, snaps, zippers, hook and eye closures, etc.)
• PVC
• No Parking signs
• Leather cording
• Wooden beads
• Claw/tooth shaped bead
• Smooth-On (Epsilon, Mold Star, EpoxAcast, SmoothCast 300/325)
• Acrylic paint
• Acrylic sheeting
• Apoxie Sculpt
• Super Sculpey
• Matte black pantyhose
• Rubber cement, a LOT of rubber cement
• Plastidip
• Electronics from Adafruit (Neopixel Rings, Sequin LEDs, rechargeable and coin battery power supplies, Gemma wearable arduino)

The back of Ah Puch's head is sort of like a skull cap on a bald head with a bone-y tentacle, thing. I've never really made anything like this and I have a lot of hair I don't want to cut off so hard parts first, right?

I checked out one of Evil Ted's tutorials on making a foam helmet, building along with his video and everything seemed technically possible - it was up to me to not screw it up! The original test skull was done in 6mm EVA but was way too thick for the look I wanted so this template was later transferred to a veg tanned leather base and detailed with 2mm EVA.

NOTE: This Instructable assumes the reader has a basic understanding of patterning for, cutting, gluing, sanding, sealing, and painting EVA foam for cosplay. If you are not familiar with this material, please see Evil Ted, Punished Props, WM Armory, and particularly THIS Instructable for how to work with EVA foam for cosplay.

The mask was sketched out digitally then physical drafts were started in 110lb. cardstock and cardboard boxes. I'm not so great at pulling shapes out of my butt so I started with some preexisting pep patterns for Red Hood (base face) and Captain America (brow ridges), and tweaked it till I hated it less.

In game, he can open his mouth and make ultra creepy faces so that was a feature I wanted to make sure to include in real life. Simple pivot hinges were created in the jaw corners - first with brads, later screws to give range of movement to the mouth.

The face in foam had a tendency to splay itself out wider than desired so I used some rigid insulation foam as a base for the outer edge piece. This part was further reinforced by backing the whole piece with SmoothCast300 and some fiberglass cloth.

The whole face was given a coating of SmoothOn's Epsilon and Apoxie Scupt teeth added. Epsilon was made for EPS foam. Since there's some of that here and I needed a material to cover the whole face that was safe for all of the face foam - both EVA and EPS, that wouldn't puddle in shallow details, and was rigid like bone. I'd never used it before so I slopped some on a few foam scraps laying around to get an idea of how thick it could be applied and how it might behave on hard angles and in some of detailed recesses on the staff.

First things first, do not use Mod Podge on fake foam feathers even if you think the brushstrokes here might add to the look because even if they do, the feathers will be brittle af. They'll snap and be ugly and you'll have to start over so don't.

I did and hated it so after pitching all that crap, I made a whole new batch of feathers using more accurate shapes.

To fake the hard center part of the feather, I used a paintbrush and scored along the outsides with a razor, then sanded and heated the feathers before scoring the vanes and heating the feathers a second time. Did that about a zillion more times then stuck the feathers to some cardboard with double stick tape and went to town with the Plastidip.

The large head feathers were made the same way but with two layers of 2mm EVA and some floral wire in the middle. The big "tapeworm" pieces on the staff were made like this but with bigger wire and thicker foam.

The eyes are acrylic sheet: black base, red outer, white pupil and were laser cut by Volpin Props. The open areas of the mask are blacked out with super thick, matte black tights, cut into pieces and hot glued to the inside of the mask. Breathable for what it is, opaque from the outside and just enough obstruction on the inside to require a handler.

The back of the head was made with the pattern from earlier, with a base layer in veg tanned leather with a 2mm EVA skin for some details then thicker pieces of foam, EVA or EPS for everything but the tentacle thing.

To conceal my hair, I made a black leather tube with an invisible zipper. For the white details, I stuffed the tube with plastic bags and zipped it up, then wrapped strips of white leather around the tube in a diamond pattern. After the glue cured, I carefully slit the leather intersections over the zipper with a razor. The last of the bone details on the tentacle were all EVA.

The mask has an elastic harness that fits under the skull cap. Friction holds the cap in place under the mask.

The staff was made pretty much the exact same way as the head but with different shapes.

The base staff is a couple of pieces of PVC pipe and a connector. The stone parts are EPS coated in Epsilon, the tentacles are EVA coated in Epsilon, the big thorn/horn things are EPS coated in SmoothCast300, and the brush parts from the cross section were sculpted in Sculpey, boiled, molded and slush cast in SmoothCast300, and glued on with Gorilla Glue. The "blue ball" thing is a paper mache egg chopped in half. The staff pommel is floral foam for the base shape with a coat of Apoxie Sculpt

The "tapeworm" pieces were started in Worbla but I hated it so those were ripped off and replaced with two pieces of EVA sandwiched over a piece of wire (to shape them), then coated in Epsilon. In retrospect, I wish I would have tooled the foam and gone with Plastidip but hindsight is 20/20.

I messed up and didn't get a picture of the foam/wire combo here but I used the same idea with smaller foam and wire for the feathers. The wire base is a big V, with the wibbly bits covered in foam. The pivot of the V was squished between two pieces of plastic sheeting, screwed together, and secured with Gorilla Glue. That piece was then stuck between two MORE pieces of plastic, shoved into the PVC pipe, and glued in place with Gorilla Glue. The foam over wire works out pretty well but be sure to glue the outer edges really well or the Plastidip will cause any loose parts to pull up and peel away from one another.

The small thorns are all EVA and I used this spike tutorial from WM Armory to make them.

The thorn/claw/teeth/bead things are made in three sizes, the largest molded from a pendant and recast, the smaller two sculpted in Apoxie Sculpt, box molded. All were cast in SmoothCast300. Details on the staff were strung on wire and glued into place.

I have next to no patience for being painted so I opted for a full coverage suit or rather suit and leggings, so I could not have to mess with being painted for a million years. The bodysuit and leggings were made using old patterns that were drafted from math and my measurements. Both pieces were made of a medium weight grey power net to be breathable but durable for being mesh. The first draft helped mark out where on my body his tattoos should go. The tattoos were done in gold and pink snakeskin spandex applique and all of it was later airbrushed and hand painted for more variety in color.

One of his concept sketches varied slightly from his model (go figure), so I was able to shift some of his markings around and cover up my nips. VEW.

The suit shoulder has a raglan sleeve so the seams could be best concealed with airbrushing around his delts. As much of the applique was done with the fabric laid flat because life is hard enough already. There is lingerie elastic detailing around the bodysuit leg opening, a hook and eye closure at the crotch, and an attached cowl.

The manties were made from spandex by modifying an existing underwear pattern I made for a previous costume.

The gloves were made of grey powernet and have spoopy fingernails glued on. The simple leather greaves have a center back zip. The loincloths made of dyed tissue linen and bound. An open faced cowl was draped and serged to the suit.

The suit, legs, feet, and hands have airbrushed and hand painted details.

I bought the socks then airbrushed them.

The necklace is painted wooden beads and tooth beads cast with the staff parts on leather cording. The beaded tasset detailing on heavy duty thread and sewn to a snap to open and close with the rest of the belting. The bracelets are painted wooden beads.

Most of his armor is made of either EVA or a combination of EVA on top of veg tanned leather, with a couple of chrome tan pieces mixed in.

The little dangly bone parts on his thighs get pretty thin toward the bottom so to keep those from being ripped off or whatever, the base layer is a super sturdy veg tanned leather then all the detailing done in tooled 2mm EVA, glued on with rubber cement. The base belt is veg tan leather, with a chrome tan layer, with 2mm EVA raised outer detailing.

All the foam stuff is EZPZ, especially thanks to all the ultra useful resources like tutorials and patterns from great artists like Bill from Punished Props and Evil Ted. There were some effects I wanted to create which meant individually powered and controlled components with some pretty extreme space constraints.

I sculpted the owl faces for the bicep bands in Super Sculpey, boiled it, then made a simple box mold of the face from some leftover Mold Star 30. Two faces were slush cast in SmoothCast300 because it's what I had and these needed to be hollow to hold the microcontrollers for each set of LED sequin eyes. Eye holes were drilled with a random close enough drill bit.

Inner and outer bone pieces were made from EVA then backed with a thin piece of plastic from a "No Parking" sign.

The faces are hand stitched to leather armbands.

The base bracer is done in veg tan leather with EVA detailing. The eyes were sculpted in Sculpey, molded then cast in SmoothCast 325 mixed with green dye and glitter. The swirls were etched out with a rotary tool, filled with black paint, and the entire eye clear coated.

The bracers each have neopixel rings, Gemma v.2s, and rechargeable batteries. The aurduino on these adjust each pixels brightness in a smoldering pattern, which was inspired by the engine on Volpin's Planet Express Ship.

The belt buckle and that thing on his butt glow as well. Bases were constructed from "No Parking" signs, Apoxie Sculpt, and EVA and I installed the remaining sequin LEDs in them then sealed them up and glued them onto the belt.

The belt closes with a hook and eye on cotton webbing then the decorative buckle snaps closed over the top.

The collar is EVA and leather scraps, and snaps to the suit to keep it in place. To put snaps on the collar, I stitched the male halves to small leather circles then cemented them to the collar. Females sewn to the suit in corresponding locations.

This code was written by Tyler Merta. All files titled Pixel are for the bracers and owlblink is, uh, the blinking... for the owls.

Pixel.cpp

#include 
#include "Pixel.h"
Pixel::Pixel(Adafruit_NeoPixel *neoPixel, uint8_t pixelIndex) {
  this->neoPixel = neoPixel;
  _pixelIndex = pixelIndex;
};
Pixel::~Pixel() {}
void Pixel::setColor(uint8_t red, uint8_t green, uint8_t blue) {
  _red = red;
  _green = green;
  _blue = blue;
  
  _twinkleIsGrowing = false;
  isTwinkling = false;
  setPixelColor();
};
void Pixel::twinkle() {
  if (isTwinkling) return;
  isTwinkling = true;
  _twinkleIsGrowing = true;
}
void Pixel::update() {
  if (isTwinkling) {
    if (_twinkleIsGrowing) {
      _green += 1;
    } else {
      _green -= 1;
    }
    if (_green == 200) {
      _twinkleIsGrowing = false;
    }
    if (_green == 16) {
      isTwinkling = false;
    }
  }
  setPixelColor();
}
void Pixel::setPixelColor() {
  neoPixel->setPixelColor(_pixelIndex, _red, _green, _blue);
}

Pixel.h

#include 
#ifndef HEADER_PIXEL
#define HEADER_PIXEL
class Pixel {
  public:
    Pixel(Adafruit_NeoPixel *neoPixel, uint8_t pixelIndex);
    ~Pixel();
    boolean
      isTwinkling;
    void
      setColor(uint8_t red, uint8_t green, uint8_t blue),
      adjustColor(int8_t redAdjust, int8_t greenAdjust, int8_t blueAdjust),
      twinkle(),
      update();
      
  private:
    uint8_t
      _pixelIndex,
      _red,
      _green,
      _blue;
    boolean
      _twinkleIsGrowing;
    Adafruit_NeoPixel *neoPixel;
    void
      setPixelColor();
};
#endif

pixeleffects.ino

#include 
#include "Pixel.h"
#define PIN         2
#define BRIGHTNESS  35 // 0 - 255
#define NUM_PIXELS  12
#define DELAY       6
Adafruit_NeoPixel *pixelWheel = new Adafruit_NeoPixel(NUM_PIXELS, PIN, NEO_GRB + NEO_KHZ800);
Pixel *pixels[NUM_PIXELS];
Pixel *currentPixel;
void setup() { 
  randomSeed(analogRead(0));
  
  pixelWheel->begin();
  pixelWheel->show();
  pixelWheel->setBrightness(BRIGHTNESS);
  for (uint8_t i = 0; i < NUM_PIXELS; i++) {
    pixels[i] = new Pixel(pixelWheel, i);
    pixels[i]->setColor(8, 16, 8);
  }
  pixelWheel->show();
}
void loop() {
  for (uint8_t i = 0; i < NUM_PIXELS; i++) {
    currentPixel = pixels[i];
    if (!currentPixel->isTwinkling && random(0, 100) == 1) {
      currentPixel->twinkle();
    }
    currentPixel->update();
  }
  currentPixel = nullptr;
  
  pixelWheel->show();
  delay(DELAY);
}

owlblink.ino

#define LED 0
#define MAXSTEPDELAY 10
#define MINSTEPDELAY 5
#define MAXBRIGHT 75
#define MINBRIGHT 0
#define MAXBLINKDELAY 10
#define MINBLINKDELAY 1
byte currentValue = MAXBRIGHT;
unsigned long nextBlinkTime = 0;
void setup() {
  randomSeed(analogRead(0));
  analogWrite(LED, currentValue);
  nextBlinkTime = getNextBlinkTime();
}
void loop() {
  if (nextBlinkTime <= millis()) {
    blink();
    nextBlinkTime = getNextBlinkTime();
  }
}
unsigned long getNextBlinkTime() {
  unsigned long current = millis();
  int timeDelay = random(MINBLINKDELAY, MAXBLINKDELAY) * 1000;
  return current + timeDelay;
}
void blink() {
  byte blinkSpeed = random(MINSTEPDELAY, MAXSTEPDELAY);
  
  while (currentValue > MINBRIGHT) {
    currentValue -= 1;
    writeLedAndWait(currentValue, blinkSpeed);
  }
  delay(blinkSpeed * 2);
  while (currentValue < MAXBRIGHT) {
    currentValue += 1;
    writeLedAndWait(currentValue, blinkSpeed);
  }
}
void writeLedAndWait(byte value, byte delayAmount) {
  analogWrite(LED, value);
  delay(delayAmount);
}

Thank you for reading about my build! It was my first time "sculpting" EVA. I'm really happy with the mask but I wish I would have heated and smoothed out the foam more on a lot of other pieces (I was scared to melt it!). More Plastidip in a few places would probably be a good idea, too. I'm totally not satisfied with the paint on the face (color, no depth) and the lack of weathering on everything.

That said, I know it's not a good idea to talk my work down, especially when considering competing with it (I need that shirt!), BUT! there's a lot that can be learned from mistakes and my biggest is ALWAYS never giving myself enough time. "Don't be a Dimwit."

Thank you again to everyone for working on him, from concept to completion. <3

Thank you to HiRez for making SMITE and the SMITE dev/art/design teams for doing what you do.

Thank you to HiRezAmanda, HiRezDavid, HiRezSavvy, HiRezPixie, and Mamacita for always being so enthusiastic and involved with the SMITE/HiRez community creatives. I'm pretty slow to post about making stuff so follow all of these guys for way more current goings on with Smite/Smite cosplay/cosplay!~ <3

My apologies if I have forgotten anyone

HiRez

HiRezTV

SMITE

HiRezAmanda

HiRezDavid

HiRezSavvy

Mamacita

HiRezPixie

Thank you to my favorite makers for showing me anything is possible.

GSTQFashions

Evil Ted

Punished Props

Volpin Props

WM Armory

Thank you to the SMITE cosplayers and community for being awesome.

Infiltrator Loki for the company and pictures at Momocon!

Bradiatore for his boss Anhur, Janus, and others

Maddy who did a really sweet Bakasura. Can't wait to see Ra!

Taifenn has a really great Sun Wukong - this was all around crazy solid work

Seraph makes a ton of cool stuff, including a spot on Sock PuppeTyr

Can't wait to see everyone and what they've made at HiRez Expo in January! As always, I'm really looking forward to seeing the Cosplay Contest and maybe meeting the special guest judges - Shappi Workshop & Shinju's Workshop!

Last but not least, Instructables for hosting awesome contests.

Thank you very much and happy making!