Cosplay Melee - new SyFy competition show

Cafe Society
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Hello nerds! Come gather around and enjoy the fun.

SyFy launched a new competition show for the SF/Fantasy costuming fans - Cosplayers. The structure is a little different than other competition shows - instead of following a group who compete and slowly get ejected over the season, each week 4 cosplayers will compete to win $10,000.

Judges:
Yvette Nicole Brown, actress from “Community”, doing double duty as hostess and fan judge.
Leanna Vamp, cosplay model and an industry insider, looking at bringing the character to life.
Christian Beckman, film space costume creator, focused on construction.
This week,

Alicia, Orange County California: purple haired girl who got into cosplay to impress a guy. That seems hard to compute.

Grace, Austin Texas: red-headed police officer who also cosplays. Who woulda thunk it?

Xavier, Kennesaw Georga: a black guy who is a chef by day.

Fred, Jacksonville Florida: a 49 year old British ex-pat who paints toy soldiers for a living.

Challenge: to design and build an original characters with an origin story and a full costume. Theme: Space Opera - pick your favorite space opera for your character

Round 1: Create a custom headdress for your character in 8 hours. 1 person will be eliminated, with 3 proceeding to round 2.

Alicia, “Chronicles of Riddick”: She likes the midievalesque space armor. Her character is Anna, a warrior from a planet destroyed by the necromongers, set on revenge. She’s building a partial headpiece. Interesting technique: she uses a heat gun to cut grooves, polishes them with a dremel tool, then sandwiches the foam in warbla, a thermoplastic. The thermoplastic is heated, pressed to fit, and bonded together. She then coats it with bondo spot putty, used for cars, but it gives her piece a very smooth surface to resemble metal.

Fred, “Star Trek”: Character is Martin Cromwell, who just survived an assassination attempt, and now he’s angry and looking for payback. He’s building a face mask helmet with respirator. He uses PVC and a heat gun to shape for the tubes for the respirator. Trying to make the steel plate for the top of the helmet, he tries heating foam and pressing it around a head model, but flat sheets don’t bend into smooth domes very easily, so he ends up having to piece together triangles and it comes out wonky, not even. He makes the respirator grill by scoring the foam with a knife and hitting it with a heat gun. He adds LED’s and a small flashlight to give it some technology effects.

Xavier, “Star Wars”: Character is Syresh Vos, a low-level crime lord in the outer rim. Making a helmet reminiscent of a Tie Fighter or X-Wing helmet. Build technique: he’s heating his foam pieces to help make them pliable for shaping, but the hand heat gun isn’t working - if only he had an oven. Wait, there are several small toaster ovens right over there on a bench. Works perfect for the size pieces he’s using. Also, he uses “Chicago screws” to look like rivets as part of the detailing.

Grace, “Guardians of the Galaxy”: Character is Polaris, a bounty hunter with a strong moral compass. She’s building a full helmet with goggles and a respirator. She builds the helmet out of foam, then adds decorative foam pieces to look like starburst symbols, paints it, and then scrubs at the paint to wear it down for the lived-in look.

Round 1 Judging:

Grace, Polaris helmet: Her helmet is clunky and odd-shaped, with a “thermal camera” on the front that doesn’t give two eye-aligned imagers, but. The starburst patterns are an artistic flourish, and the paint job has spots that look like paint chipped off to underlying metal. Christian feels the earpieces are a little unfisnished. Leeanna points out you can’t actually see out of the helmet, as the camera is just solid foam. Also, the respirator is a bit rough.

Fred, Martin Cromwell helmet: Overall the helmet quality is pretty good. The gridwork for the respirator is very clean, the lights enhance the appeal. But the dome’s unevenness really stands out.

Alicia, Anna headdress: The texture and paint are awesome, really looking like worn metal. It gives the headdress a real appearance of weight. The shapes and angles are artistic. It is a very clean, simple line item that feels authentic to the genre. However, she left the back part of the rim uncompleted and used string. That would have been better fully closed.

Xavier, Syresh Vos helmet: He has an enclosed helmet with stylish lines that fit the universe. He gave it lots of nicks and wear from battle. The detail work is great. Christian observes that all of the pieces seem to be consistent thickness, which might be better if different parts were different.

Results: Winner - Xavier. It was complete and could go right to set.

Eliminated - Alicia. Because it was so simple in concept, it really needed to be perfect. The incomplete feel did it in. Fred’s dome craftsmanship was lower, but it wa a complete item.

Round 2 later.

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just a sight hijack didn’t they used ot have a show about a cosplayer group that would go around to the contests and festivals ? I think it went for one season maybe 2 there was supposed ot be another but never happened and ive forgot the name of the show …

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Yup, “Heroes of Cosplay.” I never really liked most of the personalities on that show, the ones they’ve shown in the first two episodes of Cosplay Melee seem way more talented!

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Yes, i watched it, but the angst and drama was more important than the costuming.

This show the costumers are more likeable.

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Could not agree more. The four contestants in the first episode were all likeable and generally supportive of each other. No drama other than the race to finish what they were working on. Plus some incredible skill displayed. Even Alicia who was eliminated early did great work.

Maybe other episodes won’t hold up to that, or it can’t be sustained long-term. I hope they try.

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Okay, they’ve completed round 1 where they built their headdress/helmet, and Alicia got eliminated. Now it is Round 2, where they have to complete the whole character, including adding a flying device element from provided materials.

Xavier, as the winner of round 1, got first choice on the equipment, and chose the leaf blower with backpack. This means he has an ideal starting place, as the backpack portion is already set to wear on his shoulders and looks like a high-tech backpack. He elects to remove the blower tube portion, and retain the backpack. Xavier sees the others’ weapons, so he decides to create a weapon. Instead of a blaster or lightsaber, he makes a “vibroweapon”, which is apparently the third class of weapons in universe. I think that may be the attachment on the end of the stormtrooper cannon in “The Force Awakens”. He makes a polearm with a blade reminiscent to the weapons by some of the bounty hunters in TRoTJ. He then weathers and ages all his gear.

Fred starts out immediately cutting the crumpled dome off his helmet. His immediate response is the things they got critiqued on heavily need to change, so he begins there. His concept is bionic combat armor combined with some cybernetic elements to replace damage in the assassination attempt. He then decides he needs a built-in rotary cannon, so that’s his next project. He mounts a PVC assembly in the end of one of the muffler tubes which will be his arm attachment. He reconceptualizes the head for his character, with a close-fitting prosthetic device on half the face and head. Massive armor build marathon. To age out his armor and weapons, he paints the under layer, then dry brushes lighter colors over it to catch the high points, which brings out highlights and wear marks. He decides he needs a cloak, so he sews up a fur cloak.

Grace wants giant intimidating but feminine space armor. She starts on the breast plate, which requires ample curvature that she exaggerates even more. Space boobs. then she sees Fred’s big gun, and decides she needs a big gun, too. So she cuts and glues some big foam pieces into a giant rail gun. The thing is almost as long as she is. Also, it is very blocky in design, and has a structural weak point she doesn’t seem to identify - she cuts a slot down the center almost the whole length of the barrel section, only leaving about a 4 inch thick by 5 in cross section as the structure. I anticipate breakage. Sure enough, during shaping and forming, she breaks it. She cuts some other foam bits to glue on and repair the break, but it still seems fragile to me. For her pack, she uses two tubes in a parallel structure held together by foam framing, so they appear like fuel tanks. She replaces the front of the thermal screen with some thin plastic, slightly scuffed to obscure it. She also runs some EL tape in the gap in the rail gun to provide a cool light effect along the barrel path.

Judging:

They get suited up, and get ready for the runway.

Fred, Martin Cromwell, cybernetic Star Trek villain: Fred enters with dramatic flair. We can see that new streamlined face/head plate, and he’s coated around it with bloody goo. He comes in looking powerful, and his suit looks like metal. Negative comment: he put on a cape (that he couldn’t remove himself) that covered up the backpack that was part of the design challenge. His backpack looks great, with the muffler pieces making nozzles for the thrust. Negative comment 2: because he reconceptualized the character after the mask was complete, he cannot put the mask on over his new head plate. Leeann likes the cape, saying it balances the metal with glorious and soft. Overall, very good results.

Grace, Polaris, Guardians of the Galaxy bounty hunter: Grace also enters with power and drama and a scream. She marches down the runway hauling that gigantic cannon, but looks impressive. Her armor is stylized with starburst décor, but she does a great job with the weathering and wear and tear. She tops it off with an interesting character face paint and a red wig that stands up pretty high. The downside of the wig is that her helmet no longer fits properly, and has to sit at a weird angle, with the face mask skewed. The paint and décor on the gun make it look much more realistic as an actual object, but I still don’t like the oversized nature of it. I know anime is big on oversized weapons, but this is Guardians of the Galaxy. it seems a bit much to me. Her armor is impressive, but one complaint with her jet pack is that she added this large fin contraption that juts out behind her a good foot behind her shoulders. It looks unwieldy and awkward to wear. Christian also feels the proportions are off. Overall, pretty good.

Xavier, Syresh Voos, Star Wars crimelord, marches out in full battle armor, then throws some battle strikes and poses. Under the helmet, he’s dressed his face appropriately, including a scar and a contact for one eye. His armor has a Boba Fett flair without looking like his armor. Stylistically, he definitely fits the universe. He has a utility belt that has a strong Star Wars feel, with the shapes and buttons. His whole suit is very detailed, not just with battle damage, but with the structure of the elements themselves. His suit pieces look like metal. One critique: he didn’t do much to enhance or alter the jet pack, just painted it to match and stuck on a couple of small nozzles. Christian feels like it should have had some alterations to detail it up. Also, the nozzles point backwards, not down. That seems awkward for providing thrust to lift and fly. Still, awesome job.

Winner: Xavier. The quality, the detail, and the completeness of the costume were top notch, and his demeanor transformed to fit the character.

Week 2 sometime soon.

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Lovely recaps, thanks. Look like a show I’ll have to catch.

One quibble with your criticism, though:

Rocket Raccoon would disagree…

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I really enjoyed both episodes, so far. I thought the winner both times looked like they were just about to go on set. I’m super impressed with how much they manage to accomplish in just two days. I’m sure I’ll bring it up next time some child-designer on Project Runway struggles to make a sleeveless cocktail dress in that time.

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Okay, you got me there.

No doubt. I watch them start working and then appear to get sidetracked on some prop or doodad, and I’m thinking “get the important stuff done first”, but then at the end they still manage to get everything built. Maybe some detailing is lacking, but still, the overall product reads pretty good.

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Just watched the first two episodes. Fun show.

Xavier was the clear winner out of the first group. I could easily see a character/costume like that showing up in an episode of Clone Wars or *Rebels.
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Fred’s Star Trek armor looked like it would have been more at home in the Warhammer 40K universe than *Trek.
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Okay, I’m going to move on to episode 2: Throne Off. I know I’m behind - these threads take time to do.

Ruth, Outer Banks North Carolina: Specialty is making bad-ass armor to fit her plus-size body. She’s out to overturn the stereotypes: men in armor and slim, scantily-clad women.

Egar, Los Angeles California: Family owns offroad body shop. He is a blacksmith by training and likes to make metal armor.
Jennifer, San Diego California: She’s a nerdy, “mousy” shy woman who is smokin’ hot underneath, and she makes bold sexy characters. She’s a living Hollywood stereotype for nerdy girl - super hot but wearing glasses so she must be ugly. At least she doesn’t have curly hair.

Emily, Atlanta Georga: A short, stout woman who makes big armor characters.

Theme this week: Game of Thrones. Each will build an all-new original character to vie for the Iron Throne. Character must be battle ready, complete with armor, and a signature weapon - as selected from a bowl of scrolls. Stage 1, 8 hours to build weapon.

Edgar, Sword: He’s a wildling. The characters are inspired by animals and living from found things in the woods. He wants to make a crocodile sword made from croc bones for the hilt, croc hide on the blade, and the blade opens to make itself bigger. He rigs the blade extensions to resemble a croc head. He starts cutting sheet metal and designs the sword blade to open and close, but can’t rig it to do so automatically or with a control rod, it has to be manually extended. During assembly, he cracks the bone handle, so he has to reinforce it and cover it with the croc skin.

Jennifer, Crossbow: She’s always wanted to make an elfish character, so she decides there is a similar type in the Children of the Forest that she’s going to use for her character, an immortal that is hunted by the Lannisters. She wants to make a softer, more feminine weapon.

Emily, Flail: She’s a long-lost Stark, a bad-ass fighter with a weapon bigger than her. She cuts out big foam blades, and then she finds jemstones to put under the thermoplastic layer to look like rivets. She makes the chain out of warbla scraps she molds into large links. She also decorates it with fur trim. She tries to dirty it up, but doesn’t have much time and the fur is all neat and clean.

Ruth, Shield: Endessa, a rival to the Targaryens who slays dragons. She slayed the dragon that killed her father and put its skull on her shield. She uses epoxy sculpt to mold a dragon head from a mold she found. She rigs up red LEDs for the eyes, and crumples up pieces of plastic water bottle to cover them. She adds the skull and horns to the front to make it more exciting than just a flat shield.

Judging:

Ruth, Shield: Endessa is the daughter of dragonslayers from the north. The shield is made from the first dragon her ancestors slayed, then mounted the skull of the baby dragon on the shield. Christian likes the use of the crumpled bottles for the eyes, but he observes there’s a lot of battle damage it is all pretty even. It should be more subtle and more inconsistent. Leeanna likes the LEDs and water bottles for creative use of inexpensive items. Yvonne thinks it looks epic. I think it looks pretty cool, but agree the damage is too consistent and too evenly spread.

Edgar, Sword: His weapon is called “the snapper”. It is big and bad. Christian likes the crocodile theme and the use of metal, but thinks it should be more aesthetically pleasing. Leeanna doesn’t think it feels Game of Thrones, it feels too futuristic. I think the transforming element is too complicated and it doesn’t fit the theme.

Emily, Flail: Her character is Goditha, a long descendant of the Starks, coming back to avenge them. Her flail is huge - almost bigger than her. The blades look good, the chain links work well and give good motion. Christian likes the detail on the handle, but it needs to be dirtier and aged more, and the rivets feel molded in, not attached. I have to agree. I think the Chicago screw technique from the previous week looks more authentic for rivets.

Jennifer, Crossbow: Kira is an elf, so she made a crossbow to defend against the Lannisters. Christian observes that is should read more like wood, with more paint and dry-brushing. Also, the bow part is too thick to bend the way a bow should. Leeanna likes the detailing for the aesthetics and the rope.

Winner: Emily. Detail was amazing, movement was wonderful, and it was big. To me, that is a strike against it. There’s no way she could wield that. Thor couldn’t wield it (to mix genres). But I know that’s a cosplay thing. sigh

Eliminated: Edgar. His sword didn’t fit Game of Thrones.

Stage 2: Two days to create a full suit of armor for their character. Before creating the character, there’s a twist. They have to spin a wheel and get assigned a realm. Emily gets two chances since she won. I don’t like this part. They were previously assigned to create a character so they could create the weapon, and part of that process is deciding details about where their character is from, what realm they represent. Now the show is forcing a realm change on them, which can only serve to weaken their concepts.

Emily: She gets Dothraki, but doesn’t want that as it isn’t Stark. Her second spin is Wildling. Crap. So now her long lost Stark is a Wildling. She’s going to make head to toe armor embellished with fur and feathers. She needs to improve her rivet technique, so she uses googly eyes. She glues them on the core, then covers them with the thermoplastic. She says it makes them look attached, but it doesn’t. It still has the problem that the thermoplastic bends around the edges and smooths them instead of making crisp lines. They still look embedded under the skin. She incorporates some direwolf shapes to the armor for the wildling element.

Ruth: She wants Targaryen to match her concept, so of course she gets White Walker. Yea. She decides that her character is the same, just she died so now she’s come back as a white walker. I guess that’s a way to salvage it. She makes some large more masculine in shape armor, not really emphasizing the bust. I mean it has to a little, but not uber-enhanced. She traces out scales for the armor chest, and horns to tie in the dragon theme. She uses drywall spackle to add frost to her armor.

Jennifer: She gets Baratheon. I don’t know enough about GoT to know if that fits at all. Jennifer observes their sigil is a deer, so she can make that work. She wants a more organic, fitted look instead of metal plate armor. She makes finger armor - lots of small individual plates to cover her fingers. Hmm. She makes the breast plate by forming warbla over her mannequin. Rubbing down the mannequin with Vaseline so it doesn’t stick - “that’s what she’s doing”. “Some of the advice I got was to not make things so bulky,”. Um, no, that wasn’t a generic “don’t make things bulky”, that was a specific “a wooden bow has to be thin enough to bend”. But I don’t have a problem with her making the breastplate form-fitting. She adds antlers and deer forms to tie in the Baratheon realm.

Round 2 Judging:

Emily, Goditha, Wildling with Flail: On her entrance, she looks pretty good. The armor seems pretty effective with fur and feather elements fitting the wildling theme. The big cut on her face gives it flair. However, watching her swing the flail just points out how cumbersome it should be. Christian observes the detail and the armor looks metal, but there isn’t enough weathering. It needs to be far dirtier for a wildling who lives in it. Leeanna loved the dramatic entry and the embodiment of the character. Yvonne is impressed with the amount of work.

Jennifer, Kira, Baratheon elf with a crossbow: (What’s with the laser pulse from the crossbow? It’s a bow, not a blaster.) She comes creeping in like a elf stealing through the woods, pulsing her bow periodically to resemble firing it. Her armor is more leather than metal, but that fits the character. It definitely pulls of the graceful female look. She decorated it with numerous stag shapes and elements, to fit the realm. She does a decent job of fitting her original character idea into the story concept she was given. Christian wants more detail to the armor. Also, the judges didn’t think her entry was “confident” enough. They wanted her marching in, not stealing through the woods. I think she embodied her character correctly.

Ruth, Andessa, White Walker with a shield: Her face makeup fits the zombie element. Her entrance is hugely dramatic, and the snow element works well. Her armor is impressive, and the shoulder blades seem functional. Leeanna feels it is more nights watch than white walker. Christian loves the detail on most of it, but the big shoulder pauldrons are smooth - he wants something there. Yvonne says she would buy it as an action figure. I think it looks awesome. I disagree about the pauldrons needing scale detail on them. I think they look like steel plates. But he want’s something to break up the blank space. Meh.

Winner: Emily.

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Couple weeks back, but here goes…

Josh: Makes lots of kick ass armor.

Becka: Shy girl who dresses up as flashy warrior women in skimpy armor.

Steven: Full-time prop maker who does detailed costumes.

Cait: Says she’s known for down to the wire cosplay.

Theme: Video Games - high-tech future hero games.

Round 1: Make a signature weapon that is fully integrated into exoskeleton armor. (This gives the immediate follow-on implication that you will be building an exoskeleton armor for your character.)

Cait, Overwatch: She’s a pyromaniac, her weapon is a flamethrower with the nozzle on her gauntlet/bracer and a funky tank on her back. She starts on the fuel tank by rolling EVA foam into a tube, then puts a flat bottom and a funnel-shaped top, all cut by hand as you go. Then she starts the gauntlet. She covers her bracer in carbon fiber wrap to give it a cool look. Oops, the gauge at the top is too heavy for the top of her tank, so she cuts off the dome and carves a thick foam piece to be stronger.

Steven, Destiny: A Guardian who is a necromancer. That means he is a wizard, combining tech and magic. His weapon is a plasma cannon with a shoulder tank and a gauntlet cannon. He starts with a power box. CONSTRUCTION TECHNIQUE ALERT! He bevels the inside of a piece of PVC pipe to make a round stamp to form perfect circles. He also uses molding and resin casting to make a bunch of bone pieces for detail elements so he doesn’t have to hand work each one. He makes faux leather straps out of foam by heating crinkled aluminum foil to make texture, and then will dry brush over it.

Becka, Star Trek Online: Creating Genesis, a weapon that funnels all the knowledge of the universe through one’s vertebrae. She is going to build a huge back-carried set of rings with a vertebra linkage. She paints a power orb and adds mystical runes all over the rings.

Josh, Fallout: His weapon is the Annihilator 14, which combines a submachine gun, a plasma thrower, and a 14 bank missile cluster. He starts with a gauntlet, then makes finger pieces using BBs to become rivets. Finger armor! For his missile launcher, he makes a small box for his upper arm and then cuts 14 dowel rod pieces and rounds their fronts on a belt sander. They’re looking pretty rough. I guess he flattens them on down to look better. He then builds a drum magazine for his .45 ACP hand cannon. He once again uses pieces of the dowel, this time to be rounds visible in the magazine. He got mad dremel skills.

Judging:

Josh: The gauntlet hand cannon looks pretty cool, and the drum magazine is neat. It seems to me the dowels are too think for .45 ACP rounds, but I’m not an expert. He also has something to be a plasma cannon, which has a small round tank sticking off it. And then he has a hose that runs up to his arm mounted missile rack. Ok, I am going to say something that is contradictory to my usual opinion, but this is the one case where I feel he’s actually gone too small with his build. If the character is going to have an exoskeleton (powered body armor suit), then weight isn’t the issue. But the plasma canister and especially the “missiles” feel too small to be effective. I guess they have some mega-high explosives and it speaks to the level of tech, but it feels wrong to me. He does have a good rationale for the weapon group chosen, and the pieces look weighty. Christian’s generic comment: “The hose should have more detail, it’s plain next to all the other stuff.” Apparently there’s nothing plain in his universe.

Becka: Her backpack is large, made of rings with spires off the sides and top. The power orb and spinal column are really neat. The texture on the other parts is rough and it’s hard to tell what material it is supposed to be - metal? Leeanna observes that there is some unevenness in the spikes.

Cait: Her flamethrower gauntlet is cool, it reads like a metal tube for the end, and she has tubes to the pressure tank as well as protection for the hand when she fires it. She’s decorated it with random spikes. Her pressure fitting looks really good, but the writing on the gage is by hand and looks rough. Christian observes it looks more like a wearable weapon than an integrated part of an exoskeleton.

Steven: His metal bits read metal, his leather bits really read leather even though they are foam, and his biological elements have their own texture and look. He’s done a lot of detail and texturing. It looks great. Christian thinks the metal parts should match better the organic look of the wrist part of the weapon. I disagree. He’s mixing two elements, the biological parts and the metal parts. They should look different.

Winner: Josh. I think Steven’s is better. Oh well.

Eliminated: Cait. They think it seems more like a wearable item than something integrated to her body. Also, they feel the tech doesn’t look like Overwatch.

Round 2: Make the rest of the exoskeleton, but add lights from a box of random LED elements. Lots of lights. Josh gets first choice. The others decide pretty easily.

Josh: He starts playing with the lights to see how they work and find the colors and patterns he wants. He picks teal to match a character from the game. He takes a sound reactive light panel and ties it to the sound panel in his mask so the helmet has lights that react to his talking. He decides he doesn’t have enough weapons, so he adds a twin machine gun with a belt feeder to carry on the other side.
Becka: She wants to use the LEDs tastefully to not look like a rave show. She’s going to do a chest piece and a halo and visor. She spends a lot of time cutting out rune pieces for part of her detail work. “Green is the color for energy.” Um, ok. She ends up delaying her lights till very close to the end.

Steven: He is going to put a lot of LEDs to light his including lights in the mask. He makes a resin-cast mask to resemble bone texture like his gauntlet, and he goes after it to clean out the eye sockets and give detail. He cuts some LEDs out of a glove and mounts them in the eyeholes above his line of sight. He winds some lights into his hose as well.

Christian makes the point to all three of them that this challenge is about head-to-toe lights, but clean lighting. Note to self: they gave you a box with a lot of stuff in it for a reason. They expect a lot of lights on the result.

Judging:

Josh, Siege, Fallout: Sound effects work wonders to add drama to the entry. His armor looks weighty and metallic, and he’s incorporated lights in the backpack and in power tubes on one of his weapons. He has a lot of weathering detailing. He also does a neat face paint technique to make his face resemble more as if it’s constructed of metal. His looks really cool, except for my previous complaint about weapon size. Christian observes there isn’t enough light.

Steven, Sarus Krusor, Destiny: His armor looks awesome, the details are great, the weathering is well done. He also incorporates the lights really well and uses a lot of them. The light highlights the detail in the mask, too. Christian’s complaint is that there’s a bare spot on the left leg. I see his point here, he should have an armor plate there, too. But still the overall effect is impressive.

Becka, One, Star Trek Online: The armor elements look pretty cool, though I would argue it’s not really an exoskeleton as they are separate parts on bare skin, but the pack does integrate to her spine, so that sort of meats the challenge. Also, I don’t know the game, but Star Trek doesn’t seem to me to be ripe for exoskeletons. Anyway, her visor is cool and lighted, and despite putting the lights off, she makes good use of them, especially the power orb. My complaint is that she adjusted how the pack sits from before. In the first round, she had two shoulder straps that had it sitting a bit lower on her back. But for this round, she added the torso armor and propped the backpack up higher, which also sticks it back away from her a bit awkwardly. It looks ungainly. Christian observes a lot of fit issues with the armor, things floating around, the torso having a large gap at the abdomen.

Winner: Steven. The quality between him and Josh was pretty even, but Steven made better use of lights, which was part of the challenge.

And I see that somehow I deleted the one about Angels and Demons without review.