With the release of the Iron Kingdoms Requiem Kickstarter I was suddenly re-invigorated for the Iron Kingdoms. So much so that I have decided to create a costume for cosplay events at my local FLGS, Nerdy Coffee Co., and possibly further afield.

I have always loved the Iron Kingdoms and creating a costume to fully imerse myself in it (and possibly DM some Requiem games at the shop) seemed like the next logical step for me. I am hoping to work with a local seamstress for the soft elements of the costume but I have already started on the harder elements, guns, swords/wrenches, and armour panels. I just couldn’t resist. Also I’ve decided to over engineer everything, as I am apparently want to do with lots of my projects.

So I have a look through the Iron Kingdoms artwork for some inspiration and I’ve always loved the way Black River Irregulars Captain Colby Sterling looks but as a 6ft 3in man with a full beard, pulling off that look would be quite difficult, so I’m going to blend her and Rutger Shaw together to create something a bit unique. I also figured I could probably create 2 characters out of one costume with a few variations in equipment etc so I have some variety.

For the 2 different characters I have decided to work of a Gun Mage and a Mechanik (which with minor alterations could also be an Arcane Mechanik) so the first thing I did was plan out the weapons. Slug Gun and ‘Jack Wrench for the Mechanik and Magelock and Sword for the Gun Mage (and just because I can I’ll be making this one Mechanikal with glowing LEDs etc)

I decided early on that both the guns would have working trigger and hammer mechanisms along with a break open design and removable bullet/slug too. I know that’s one way to bite off more than I can chew. I scoured thingiverse for a working system that I could rig into my designs and got to work. The Slug Gun was created from scratch around the mechanism but the Magelock was adapted from an existing design. After a solid day and a half’s work I have the stl’s mostly where I wanted them to be and I had started printing parts to test the mechanics.

With the tests a success I forged on printing parts and as of this morning they are mostly finished printing, just the stock on the Slug Gun to go which still has about 24hrs left on the print. I’ll grab another pic of that once it’s done. I printed most of the parts at 0.12mm layers heights, not caring about the print times as much as saving myself as much cleanup as possible. And this is where I’m up to, the easy bit is done, now comes the hard part of sanding and smoothing all the parts.