10 Creative Cosplayers Who Broke The Mold
6. Extreme Costumes
Tom DePetrillo of Extreme Costumes has been making... well, extreme costumes for about 20 years. He spent most of his time making costumes as a hobby, but gradually, over time, he started making more money from his hobby than he did in his day job, and costume creation won in the end.
Now, he produces incredibly detailed and seemingly impossible costumes full time, but he's not alone. He creates costumes under the Extreme Costumes name with several other talented individuals. DePetrillo and his team got busy following the debut of the cinematic Hulkbuster armor in Avengers: Age of Ultron and the results are outstanding.
The suit was created via corrugated polycarbonate for the majority of the upper torso, and EVA foam was used for the lower body. This enabled DePetrillo and his team to construct the detailed curvature of the armor without sacrificing durability in what amounts to high impact areas.
The whole thing weighs in at 106 lbs and requires 44 AA and 9 AAA batteries just to keep the lights, fans, and sound effects working. DePetrillo wore the complete costume, which took over 1,600 hours to finalize, to NYCC 2015, where he won the ReedPop's Costume Contest, taking the first prize.