Thor from Thor: Ragnarok
Thor costume from Marvel Studios’ Thor: Ragnarok — the Sakaaran gladiator look: breastplate, bracers, leg armor, pauldron, a helmet with rotating “ears”, two swords, and the hammer. Premiered at Starcon 2018.
Breastplate, bracers, and skirt are made from natural undyed vegetable-tanned leather (2 mm for the back panel, 3.1–3.5 mm for the front) — leather was chosen for its texture, strength, and how well it takes the armor pattern. The pattern was first cut in lightly with a swivel knife, then embossed by wetting the leather and pressing a stamp into it. Dyeing is wood stain (rosewood) followed by linseed oil, which darkens the tone further. The red highlight pattern on top is brushed acrylic; shadows are airbrushed with black.
Pauldron, leg armor, and helmet are EVA foam (5 mm base with 1–2 mm decorative overlays). The leg armor was patterned by taping the leg with paper tape to create a “cast”, then transferring the shape to foam and forming it with a heat gun. The pauldron starts from a Kamui template with additional shapes built up from masking tape. The helmet is built from a Creative Commons pattern shared by a YouTube creator; the rotating “ears” pivot on plastic-tube axles secured with a furniture cam fastener. All EVA seams were smoothed with a rotary engraver and filled with sealant.
Painting of the EVA parts followed the same recipe: several coats of Plastidip / “liquid rubber” first (blue for the armor and pauldron, silver-grey for the helmet) — its near-final tone meant less paint was needed on top. Then acrylic base coat, airbrush shading and gradients (the pauldron even got a bit of “graffiti”), finished with a matte acrylic spray lacquer.
Swords were cut on laser-cut plywood from original vectors drawn in Inkscape: first an engraved pattern, then the through-cut pattern on the blade. Hilts are wrapped in EVA (5 mm) coated with two layers of Bubblestar; the relief was shaped with sculpting tools and smoothed with wood finishing putty. Paint: primer, brushed base color, airbrushed blue + black, gloss lacquer. The vector files are shared publicly by the author via the link at the end of the article.
Belt buckle and shoulder discs are 3D-printed, post-processed (sanded + engraver + sealant), primed, brushed with bronze acrylic, shaded with airbrush, and finished with matte lacquer.
Pants are curtain fabric with a suitable texture — the pattern was painted on with fabric acrylic, and stamped leather kneepads (wet-formed by stretching damp leather) were sewn on top.
In this costume Anton Lenev won the “Best Cosplay” category at the Ohtacon festival final at the Okhta Mall in St. Petersburg on March 7, 2020. Full step-by-step process with photos of every stage — in the author’s VK article (in Russian).
P.S. Huge thanks to my father for his invaluable help on this costume.
