The Far Cry community team was amazed when they spotted this awesome Batari cosplay. We reached out to its creator to ask her some questions and pick her nerdy brain.
Hi there, can you present yourself to the Far Cry community?
Hi! I'm Scarlett from Scarlett Costuming and Art (FB link), but my real name is Emilie.
I'm a Danish cosplayer and biologist in the making. I'm currently writing my Master's thesis on ancient DNA from humans from the Ice Age, and that might be why I fell in love with Far Cry Primal – as a scientist I'm very interested in ancient people and their way of life, so when I saw that Far Cry Primal was a thing, I added it straight to my games list. I watched my brother play Far Cry 3, but I only just joined the Far Cry ranks when I got into Far Cry Primal.
That’s pretty unique! And what about your cosplaying skills?
I have been cosplaying for two years! I'm still quite new in the cosplay community and I'm still learning with every costume, but I love it. It's such a creative hobby and I love to create wearable art – it's the best! I also love being on stage and performing, and I have represented Denmark at EuroCosplay in London, which was an amazing experience! I could go on and on about cosplay as a hobby, it's so much fun. I have been attending contests for as long as I have been cosplaying, and just recently I won first at Dreamhack Summer 2016 in Sweden (picture credits: Danarki).
Wow, congratulations! How was your experience of these competitions?
Thank you! I wore Amiri of the Six Bears from Pathfinder for the finals at EuroCosplay 2015, and I have had such a great reaction from fans of Pathfinder. I play Dungeons & Dragons myself, so it was so cool to actually make one of the iconic characters in real life. Only a few people have recognized the cosplay, but some did when I wore her at Dreamhack Winter 2015 and won second place. I love bonding over a character like that when meeting fans of the franchise! (I have attached two pictures of Amiri, if you want to see that, too! It's the barbarian lady.)
I wore the Empress of Bones from Asura Online for the competition at Dreamhack Summer 2016, and the judges were so nice at the pre-judging. I wasn't able to wear the bone wings at the pre-judging, but I wore them on stage for my small performance, and they said they loved it, so I couldn't be happier about it. :) It's a tough costume to wear, but so worth it!
Ok, that’s pretty impressive. But why Batari?
I chose Batari because of her fierceness and her amazing design. I have always loved big headdresses, and when I saw her in game, my initial reaction was "gotta cosplay her." Then I saw she wasn't wearing a top and I knew I had to tweak the design a bit. ;) She's a tough and cold-hearted woman, but I really love how she doesn't bow down to anyone and that she's a very strong woman. She's got her priorities a bit mixed up and she rules with an iron fist, but hey, we can all have a bad day.
In short: she's a very well-written character and she looks so majestic and imposing that I couldn't resist. I usually gravitate towards dark and strong characters.
And how long did it take you to get the final version of the costume?
I finished the cosplay in six days. I made the decision quite late before the deadline, so I had to work on the cosplay a lot, but I didn't mind. I was trying out new materials and techniques, and I really love how it turned out, so I had fun!
What were the most difficult parts?
The headdress and the wig were quite challenging. I'm a blonde and I needed to make sure the dreads would cover my hair and not break the illusion. So I made a fake hairline of dreads I back-combed myself. The biggest issue ended up being the sheer weight of the headdress and dreads since everything had to stay on my head by itself. I solved this with multiple hairclips (ow!) and elastic bands. I also glued down the hairline with some prosthetic skin glue to make sure it didn't slide back.
What material did you use for it?
The headdress is made from beach mats! I bought some very cheap ones and painted liquid latex and glue on one side to make sure the woven straw didn't simply fall apart when I cut them into strips. Then I "braided" the strips of straw into the texture from the game (I used a lot of screenshots from the game and the concept art to make sure I replicated everything as closely as possible to the source material) and glued it onto a base I made from thermoplastic. Later I wove string onto the back part of the headdress and weathered the whole thing. I did the same for the bracers and shin guards. The rest of the costume was leather I had lying around from previous cosplays.
Do you have any advice for other Far Cry fans who’d like to start their own cosplay?
These kinds of cosplays are amazing to craft! You don't need to be precise and have a perfect technique or perfect craftsmanship; the materials are all natural, and everything is rugged and dirty. It's really interesting to create something new that has to look old – so my advice would be to weather everything thoroughly to make it appear old. It's all about creative solutions like using coffee or tea to make leathers look old and stained, or using a wash of acrylics to make the straw look a bit dirty and worn by time. Weathering is everything in cosplays like these. :)
What did you think about the Wenja language that we used for the game?
I loved the Wenja language! Very guttural and primal: it seems very plausible for it to sound like that! I would not be very qualified to comment on the correctness, though. ;) I work with extracting ancient DNA from petrous bones (ear bones) and mapping the genes of the people in the population. Super interesting and very nerdy!
Would you like to share anything else about this project or the game?
Keep making games like these, lol. It makes my nerdy scientist heart happy.
Credits:
Batari pictures are by "Art by Løvstrøm" on FB & Jeppe Ploug.
Costume designed by Scarlett Costuming and Art.
