This massive Warhammer Age of Sigmar squig ‘miniature’ is actually a costume created by Austrian cosplayer Doris Rastinger. After diving into the Warhammer fandom for the first time earlier this year, she used her 13 years of experience making cosplay and life-sized props to craft this wonderful walking goblin warbeast.
In case you’re a cosplay fan wondering what this red Mike Wazowski-looking creature is, we’ll explain. ‘Squigs’ are ravenous warbeasts found in every Warhammer universe. They’re used as steeds by the Gloomspite Gitz Goblins in the high fantasy Warhammer Age of Sigmar setting and the Orc and Goblin hordes in the gritty Warhammer Old World universe. In the far future of Warhammer 40k the space Orks use them for everything from bomb delivery to living toupées.
They’re technically a form of walking fungus, but really, the most important thing to know about them is that they’re big, red, very hungry, and move around by going “boing” and leaping in a random direction. Squigs are the best – which is why, when we saw this cosplay on Rastinger’s TikTok and Instagram accounts, we had to ask her how and why she made it.
Rastinger says that a lot of people have asked her how she developed the concept for the cosplay, but she says it was “more so that the costume idea instantly came to my mind”. She explains: “my brain just connected the proportions of human arms to squig legs immediately when I saw a squig for the first time”. That gave her the idea to make a giant ‘miniature’, complete with base. “It felt like such a perfect, funny costume”, she adds.
She built the costume for FreakWars Madrid, “a massive table-top, miniature and wargaming convention”. It proved serendipitous, “as the event later also invited me as a cosplay guest and competition judge”.
“The costume was a huge questionmark as I had never worked with its base materials before, nor made a creature cosplay”, Rastinger says. “There was no way to tell beforehand if it would read well as an oversided miniature or if it would look really awkward when worn”.
The squig’s legs – technically a very over the top set of gloves – have an inner lining that fits around the hands, which is covered in soft foam to grant them bulk, with a ‘skin’ of fabric over the top. “Getting their shape right turned out one of the biggest challenges”, Ratsinger says.
The squig body is made from foam, again skinned with a colored fabric. That was a “rather straightforward process once I make a low-poly 3d model that I could turn into a pattern”, Ratsinger says. The base is made from cardboard with a foam rim, with fake fur ‘grass’ and added fake foliage.
Everything has been painted to add depth and texture to the block colors – just like painting a miniature. Rastinger says that “before the shading work, it did look quite terrible” – it only “became an interesting piece when painted and based”.
Rastinger, better known as the_crafting_dodo online, has “been making cosplays and life-sized props for around 13 years”. She started with action figures, then got into cosplay by “building armor from cardboard and other cheap materials”, before teaching herself to sew.
She says she learnt “a ton of painting techniques from miniature tutorials”, and loved the “technical approach and in-depth explanation of techniques” they provided. Techniques like “non-metallic metal and other stylized approaches” are “equally valuable and applicable for cosplay”.
Rastinger says she “only started going down the Warhammer rabbit hole earlier this year”. Part of that was when she discovered how big the community was in Spain, which she moved to just two years ago. “I was incredibly happy to find a creative scene that also has now allowed me to get more in touch with local artists, clubs and the language itself”, she explains.
Since then she’s been painting miniatures at a rate of one or two models a week – you can find more pictures on her separate painting Instagram. She says that she’s “also slowly discovering the massive lore of both the Age of Sigmar and 40k settings”, and is making the tricky decision about a first Spearhead army.
Rastinger says she “could not have anticipated how overjoyed people were when they spotted” her wearing the squig cosplay. She adds that children were “clearly intrigued by its round colourful shape” but “also ready to flee the premises of the event”. The response online has also been really positive. “I could not ask to be part of a better community and look forward to more Warhammer crafting shenanigans”, she says
The Gloomspite Gitz are one of our favorite Age of Sigmar armies, and we love a good cosplay here at Wargamer. Check out some of our previous cosplay interviews if you haven’t before: the excellent Space Marine Fightin’ Fistin’ Johnson, Dwarven Armory’s amazing Votann Kin, and MissLilithCosplay’s Sister of Battle mum.
Source: Wargamer
