Return to Arts and Crafts

After wearing my Mizutsune armor for a few years, I felt inspired to take my Monster Hunter cosplaying to new heights. I picked Great Jaggi, my beloved woop woop lizard, since I had started with Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and had fond memories it kicking my ass when I started out (and crafting my first armor, though it was the gunner variant in my playthrough.) I also wanted to get super experimental trying to get the colorful lizard hide effect down, and to represent the "old age" games now that Monster Hunter World had released and introduced not only a lot of new players, but a veritable new wave of cosplayers flocking over to these complicated armor builds.

I started my Great Jaggi armor in early 2020, testing my cotton swatches with different paint jobs and carving test claws. I began by building the armor pieces out of EVA Foam to practice some techniques I'd learned with EVA Foam armor on the internet. I quickly assembled the hat, the fabric collar and elbow/knee armor within a few weeks. For the lizard hide I ended up using tan color cotton extensively painted with fabric colors to keep it lightweight to wear. The paint effect was achieved by "dying" the gradients with watered down paints and then painting blotches for texture, then individual scales in places.

Unfortunately, however... By the time I started the coat, Covid-19's spread got out of control and March marked the beginning of global pandemic lockdowns. While I already had all the materials to finish this costume, events were put on hold and my motivation to work on the costume plummeted. I finished sewing and painting the coat by end of March, but afterwards I took long breaks between parts. I also picked up a lot of miscellaneous, non-costume projects here and there to keep the mood up.

In June, I revisited the costume to finish making the last few armor pieces. The bracers close with velcro and are covered with more painted lizard-like cotton, scrap fur I got from a friend, and pleather straps from a previous costume. After another few months break, I made the bag belt harness out of brown pleather and the rest of the armor attachments, completing the outfit with boots I had in storage.

In November, I built the Bone Dual Blades out of EVA Foam, wood dowels, scrap pleather and a papier maché shell over the blades to give it an irregular, bone-like texture. I'm more of a Sword and Shield player myself, but I didn't wanna damage one of the bracers wearing a shield on my arm. (And honestly, I had to swap to DBs to farm G-Rank Yian Garuga in the Everwoods. That thing SUCKS with SnS!)

With the armor completed in November 2020, it would take more than a year to finally get to wear the costume at an event. I ended up making Pico during that time, but when we finally got news of a convention being organized with safety guidelines in mind, I finally got to take out the armor for a spin! I discovered wearing it that it was much more of a "photoshoot" costume than an event one, with movement being quite difficult and the knee armor in particular changing my whole walking stance, but thankfully, I had a photoshoot already organized with SPS Cosplay Photography on-site, I got to immortalize this Great Jaggi armor set.

The armor was retired right after this event; while it looked beautiful, I learned wearing it that I have a limit to how much enjoyement I derive from "display-focused" costumes, and I much prefer more mobile copslays where I can actually move around and enjoy the event's activities. I also learned I really didn't like having to have both my hands full with props. This costume helped me discover my changing priorities now that I had over ten years of con-going under my belt. But I'm still glad I got to wear it and represent one of my favorite armors in Monster Hunter.

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