Nilou

(Genshin Impact)

Completion date: February 2023

Photographer: Adorables

Costume Details

Nilou’s design is gorgeous, and I love that she is a dancer just like me! I knew going into this project that it would be detailed, but as I began working on it I kept discovering more and more details that I hadn’t noticed before! It features 68 unique resin-printed pieces, all 3D-modelled by me. Modelling, printing, sanding, priming and painting each individual piece was definitely the most time-consuming part of her costume.

I wanted to replicate the in-game 3D model from Genshin as accurately as I could, which meant I had to make the skirt quite rigid so it would keep its shape- this was achieved by making the gold trim from EVA foam wrapped in gold spandex. However, this meant it lost a lot of flow and movement. This was a hard balance to achieve and looking back on it I think I would have chosen a different construction method to allow it to move more freely, particularly for videos.

The horns are resin printed (hollowed out to reduce weight) and attach onto a headband using strong neodymium magnets. Check out my video above to see how it all assembles together! The headpiece is extremely delicate, since it consists of very thin resin-printed pieces. Printing this was a challenge as I only have a small resin-printer, and so it had to be split up into multiple parts then glued together. It’s quite secure when worn on my head, but transporting it is very difficult due to how fragile it is.

For her weapon I chose to make Xiphos’ Moonlight instead of her signature weapon, purely because I prefer the design! I 3D-modelled the whole sword in Fusion360, then 3D printed using my Ender 3 FDM printer. It splits in two pieces for transport and uses two metal rods as supports.

I debuted this cosplay at Katsucon 2023, and got to do my dream photoshoot in the legendary gazebo! I plan to upgrade this costume over time and take it to even more amazing locations over the world.

Character reference

Follow the build process here! ⤵