Since going to my first comic con, I had numerous people tell me “you look like that guy from FarCry 3”, so, once finding out that they meant the maniacal Vaas, and that I did indeed look quite a lot like him, he became high on my “to cosplay” list.

The difference between this and most of my cosplays is that it’s primarily created from purchased items rather than ones made from scratch such as an armour set. That said, there are still numerous changes that need to be made in order to make the parts look authentic, and with a bit of shopping around it’s possible to get really excellent and high quality outfit parts for very little price. Here’s exactly how I did it.

1) Hair / Beard

I’ll admit, I’m at a huge advantage here. I already have a mohawk like the character, and I can cut my much larger beard however I like. Otherwise, the smallest mohawk / fohawk you can do would be best.

2) Red vest



This took quite a while to find as it’s not just regular “red”, but more of a maroon shade (the reference image above is a bit of fan art so not entirely accurate), and in the end I discovered it on ASOS. You can buy the same one here for £6.

Once that’s arrived, you need to weather it and add the white patch to the bottom left. In order to fray it like it appears in game, I rubbed some of the seams with the most jagged side of a cheese grater. For the white spot, I wet the material and then rubbed in some white acrylic paint. Then I left it to dry for a couple of hours on a washing line, but before it was fully dry (touch damp but not saturated) I took it off the line and dried it with a hair dryer. This helps “cook” the paint into the material so it doesn’t flake off when you wear it. It works surprisingly well.

I can’t promise that it will hold up to washing, but it should easily last a convention weekend.

3) Necklaces



Vaas wears three. A smaller black beaded one (don’t be fooled into thinking it’s leather, it’s not), a longer black leather one with a green stone on it and another longer red one that’s more like a strip of fabric than a regular necklace.

For the straps themselves, two of these, I was able to source from eBay for a couple of pound each.

Shorter black beaded necklace (18″) – £2.99

Longer black one (22″) (without stone) – £1.79

The third one, the red leather one I found a ladies belt in Primark for £2 which I then cut to length and added a clasp too. Pretty easy.

As for the stone, I decided to mould one out of Premo! Sculpey modelling clay in order to get shape correct. It took a few attempts, and I had the oven too high a couple of times, but I got it just right in the end.

4) Trousers

Depending on the version of Vaas that you’re doing (in-game / promotional / YouTube mini-series), you have a bit of flexibility here. Blue or dark green combats will suffice (personally I had some blue combats lying around already that worked fine), or some distressed jeans would also look the part.

In-game, Vaas wears what looks like a pair of jeans with a zip across the knee but I’ve had absolutely no joy finding them. Eventually I’ll get the right jeans and sew in a knee zip to upgrade the outfit for extra accuracy, unless I stumble across a pair.

5) Military Belt & Suspenders plus Holsters



This is the thing that makes you stand out immediately as Vaas (when combined with the red vest), and can be tricky to get hold of correctly. It took me hours of searching to eventually find out what it was called. Turns out, it’s called a Tactical H-Type LC-1 Load Bearing Suspenders and Belt. Tactical is the holes in the belt that allow you to attach things like holsters, H-type relates to the shape of the suspenders and LC-1 is just the specific model number. If you’re lucky enough to find these on eBay or at your local army surplus store, you’re laughing.

Amazingly I found the most perfect ones ever. Two rows of tactical attachments, the correct olive colour, the correct front fastening clip and even aged nicely; plus it was only £10.

All you need to go after you get hold of your belt is add a red wrap around one of the suspenders as you can see in the reference picture. An offcut of red material or some red leather string works great for this.

The holsters are designed for a walkie-talkie and an Airsoft pistol which I picked up from the army surplus store, then attacked them with a cheesegrater in order to weather them as I saw fit.

6) Military Boots and Arms



For things like these, you want to head to your local army surplus store and ask for “party boots”. These are typically the nice boots that military guys around the world wear that have some kind of issue, like seconds, thus some military guys get these when they go out partying as to not ruin their proper ones, hence the name.

The pair above that I got are German Military Gortex boots with a thinsulate lining. Really nice quality and comfortable boot, but some oil had soaked into the sole causing the rubber to perish a little bit, meaning that instead of being £140, they were £10. You can’t beat that.

For the right wrist, I used a square of red fabric (that I bashed in the mud to weather it) and then added this black leather band over the top – £1.95 (yes, I know the link is to a brown one, but if you ask them for black during your purchase they’ll send you a black one)

For the left wrist it’s a case of getting some pretty regular bandages, ageing them with tea and mud, and wrapping them around your hand, and then putting a red leather bracelet over the top. I went for this one – £0.99

The red wrap around the left upper arm is again just an offcut of fabric that’s weathered, wrapped and tied off. Easy.

7) Shoulder belts



There’s no way that I would be able to find this bit “off the shelf”, so it was something that needed to be made; and it’s pretty simple. It’s just a length of 25mm (1″) white webbing – 5 metres should suffice – with a Delrin clip and a Delrin three prong buckle sewn into it, then tying it off at one end and weathering it by soaking it in tea. Afterwards I cut up some scraps of black fabric and stitched them in place. Another part, done.

9) Accessories



You have to have a pistol for Vaas. It’s mandatory. Any self-respecting toy or fancy dress shop will have a semi-decent pistol that you can use. I opted for the one above, which was about £5, which I then painted silver and weathered with black paint in order to look real.

Final accessory that you need is a walkie-talkie.

Unless you specifically need a working one, you can get broken ones on eBay for a fraction of the price of one that works. I got a working one for £14.99 (as I know other people who are taking one, so it will be fun to use in the venus), and once you’ve removed the aerial it will look spot on, so that’s that done too.

10) The scar

If you’ve never heard of Rigid Collodoin, now’s the time to find out about it. I could talk you through the process, but there are so many videos out there explaining how to use it that it would be counter-productive. Just have a look at this video, then find a local supplier (or eBay has plenty) and use that.

With all of those things put together, your outfit is done. I reckon the total cost is somewhere in the region of £45 – £70, depending on what you do about trousers and walkie-talkie, as they’re typically the most expensive bits, and to be honest, the boots, gun, holster and trousers in particular I’ll be able to use for loads of cosplays, and the rest of the outfit will store really easily so it’s one I’ll be able to pull out of the bag at any time.

Here’s the finished result (albeit without the scar, darker eye make-up and without muddying up the trousers and boots, which I’ll be doing the day before the con). What do you think?