Ever been to a convention and wondered how people made such great armor to cosplay in? From The Master Chief to Paladins from World of Warcraft, I am definitely among those who have wondered how they do it and I can happily say a majority of those great cosplayers didn't dish out hundreds of dollars making their own awesome get-up. They simply printed their armor out! Ok, maybe not all of them have, and i'm sure a lot of them went the extra mile doing their craft, but seriously, it's true and it's pretty awesome.

A video from youtuber Gigafide, who makes a lot of sweet guides, posted a video on creating cool armor from video games and comics out of paper and coating. I'm sure the knowledge was out there, after all, a lot of good cosplayers already do it, but un-informed people like me didn't know this could be done.

According to Gigafide, all you have to do is download this nifty program called Pepakura Designer, which uses .PDO files to 3D model. The program is easy to use and their are a lot of pre-made designs floating around all over the internet. For some things however, you may need to get creative, like for chest plating. Once that's done, you print out the armor, piece it together, and coat it with fiberglass resin or whatever you can afford. Once everything is dry and virtually indestructible, just spray paint it over and get as creative as you want with different coatings and what not to simulate different surfaces, With enough dedication and time, you really could make something look pretty freaking' awesome.

After some research, the fiberglass resin is the most expensive item coming in around the $40-$50 range or more for some high quality stuff. Paper is pretty cheap and ink is implied but let's say you spend $30 because you print out a ton of stuff, you know, cause you need to prepare yourself from head-to-toe for the Battle of Endor. Lastly, extras can depend on your goal -- spray paint, coating, lights, visors, the works. I'd say if you go the extra mile and make something ridiculous, you're looking at around $200 -- don't quote me on this. That's still crazy cheap compared to just buying whatever you're trying to make straight-out and at least if you do it yourself, it can be as creative as you want, it'll fit, and it also gives you that accomplished feeling inside.

Hopefully, i've opened your eyes to more possibilities in the realm of cosplay. I don't do it cause I didn't know this was possible. So i'm just going to leave Gigafide's video here for you to enjoy. Excuse me while I finish building Megatron.

[Video via Gigafide]