I first saw Drack Cosplay last year when he debuted his Halloween Reaper costume and was instantly blown away. Not even metaphorically, pretty sure I hit the deck. As you can see from the photos below, Drack is anything but a one hit wonder.
Age: 40
Location: Cornwall
Favourite food: curry, pizza or both! Just not together
What’s your favourite part of the costume making process?
I live for the foam work. I just received a rather large amount of foam for my next project. There’s nothing like finishing an armour piece. You start to see how it’s going to take shape straight away. Although I don’t like to start with the head, it’s the part I look forward to the most.
Who or what inspired you to first start cosplaying?
I had never heard of cosplay before, but five years ago I wanted to win the fancy dress competition at my local pub. I looked on YouTube for some pointers on how to go about making a costume that would stand out. I found a tutorial on making very basic armour and started researching cheap materials for it. While I was doing that I think I was hooked instantly and started to see what else I could make. I found a guy being interviewed in an Iron Man cosplay and half way through, the interviewer stopped and asked him to do the face plate thing again. The face plate closed, and the eyes lit up, then opened again without any buttons being pressed. That was it, I had to own one! I started to make an Iron Man armour but never finished it unfortunately. I still have it all so maybe one day…
Do you have a dream cosplay you’d like to work towards?
I would love to do one of Zach Fischer’s designs. His art work is amazing. Another dream cosplay I have is something I am working on as we speak. It’s an 8ft tall Grey Knight Terminator from Warhammer with Baroque detailing all over it. The artist had just returned from a trip to Italy and the art there inspired him to design it that way.
It’s fair to say that all of your costumes have been quite complex, what would you say is your most ambitious build to date?
I guess I would have to say my Chaos Knight. I had never worked with worbla before and picked a very detailed piece. For most of the cosplays or props I have made I’ve been able to use something called Pepakura which involves downloading a 3D model of your armour or prop and it turns it into 2D patterns that you can use as templates. For the Chaos Knight there was no 3D model so I had to freehand all of it.
If you could go back and give newbie Drack any advice, what would it be?
To be honest, none! I started the journey the right way by reading up on techniques as much as I could. I joined the 405th and the RPF and read as many build threads on there as I possibly could before I started anything. Even the mistakes I made got me to where I am now so all of it was worthwhile. If anything, I wish I could go back years before there was a Drack and introduce myself to cosplay earlier.