A Japanese man who had always wanted to live as an animal managed to fulfill his dream thanks to a professional dog costume made by a company specializing in special effects and special modeling.

Ever wanted to live as an animal? No? Well, Japanese Twitter user ‘Toco’ had been thinking about it for a while, and he recently decided to follow his dream. He contacted special effects workshop Zeppet and asked them to build him an ultra-realistic dog costume that would conceal his human frame and allow him to live out his fantasy. They reportedly charged him about 2 million yen ($15,000) for it, but the end result was indeed pretty darn impressive.

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Solange Amorim, a 50-year-old mother from Manaus, Brazil has been getting a lot of online attention lately for her ability to transform herself into popular cartoon characters and her courage to regularly attend cosplay events, which usually appeal to youths.

Solange, who goes by Tia Sol on social media, discovered the wonderful world of cosplay when she started accompanying her daughter, Jessica, to local events. She fell in love with it immediately, but it wasn’t until a few years ago, when a friend asked her if she had the courage to dress up as a cartoon character herself that she really got involved in the cosplay community.

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Mary Saba, a young Australian woman whose favorite hobby is creating funny costumes, challenged herself to wear a different one every day for a whole year. Since most of her costume were homemade, Mary only needed $440 to reach her goal.

Even before she started her original project, Mary’s friends called her “costume queen” for the time and passion she put into every one of her wacky outfits. She had always enjoyed creating funny attires and having people walk up to her just to say how cool they think she looks. “Most people have regular hobbies – reading, writing, dancing, playing sports – but I always received most enjoyment from creating a really funny costume,” Mary writes on her Theme-Me blog, where she documented her personal challenge. The idea to create and wear 365 different costumes came to her around Christmas, in 2011, when she decided to dress in a series of green and red outfits every day during the last week of work, as a way of getting into the festive spirit of the Holidays. One day, she overheard some of her colleagues discussing which ones of her costumes they liked most, and that’s when she realized just how much her dressing habit entertained those around her. Mary then thought of The Uniform Project, where a girl pledged to style a black dress differently everyday for 365 days as an exercise in sustainable fashion, and it all just came together in her head.

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Japanese samurai are famous all over the world, but one Belgian man has taken his passion for these medieval warriors to a whole new level by making his own authentic armor from thousands of custom metal pieces and hundreds of meters of cord.

Danny had always been fascinated by the history and culture of the samurai. He began collecting Japanese swords when he was 16 years old, and dreamed of one day owning his very own armor. He couldn’t afford to pay tens of thousands of dollars on an authentic samurai costume, and replicas, though cheaper, weren’t built for his impressive nearly two-meters-tall size. But he wasn’t going to give up on his dream too easily, and with the help of some supportive metalworking friends, the now 42-year-old bank teller set out to build his own samurai armor. Just like the Japanese craftsmen of old, Dennis assembled his protective suit out of traditional chainmail and 3,000 small pieces of metal, every one of which was hammered by hand to the correct shape and size, strung together with 225 meters of cord. It took two long years to finish the whole thing, but the end result is simply breathtaking.

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Talented balloon artist and Toy Story fan, Jeff Wright, has managed to bring the popular space ranger Buzz Lightyear to life with an incredibly detailed inflatable costume made from hundreds of interwoven balloons.

A picture showing the awesome Buzz Lightyear costume created by Wright recently went viral on social news sharing site Reddit, racking over 170,000 views in just a few hours. Capturing all the features that make Buzz such a popular character and children’s toy, the attention to detail on this helium-inflated masterpiece is simply stunning. There’s not much information on how long it took to complete or how many balloons were used in the process, but I did find a cool video of the guy wearing the costume doing a funny impersonation of the lovable Toy Story hero. In the past, Jeff Wright has collaborated Balloon Distractions, a company that tries to make ‘the world a better place, one balloon at a time’. This Buzz Lightyear costume was definitely a great way to start, but Jeff and his wife Rachel didn’t stop there. They’ve also created an amazing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle outfit out of over 500 colored balloons, and are now moving to Bolivia as volunteers at the Life Center Orphanage, where they’ll be entertaining kids with all kinds of cool balloon creations. How awesome is that?!?

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A passionate Iron Man fan from the United Kingdom spent hundreds of hours creating a realistic-looking suit of the Marvel superhero from Eva foam, wood and other recycled items. Did I mention he’s only 17?

Reddit user Mafferick was so impressed with his 17-year-old friend’s home-made Iron Man costume that he decided to share it with the community. DIY fans obviously had a lot of questions about the materials he used and the time he spent working on it, so he gave the young creator the chance to reply via his account. It turns out the guy is a big fan or Iron Man, and he also likes making stuff, so this awesome wearable suit is a combination of two of his greatest passions. He used “lots and lots of foam, wood and various recycled bits and bobs (the boots are some old shoes with the cushions from some old roller blades to make them wearable)”, and spent “a few weeks if you add the hours together” sculpting all the various parts and making them look as realistic as possible. The rudimentary tools used to make this impressive piece of equipment include an industrial knife, a dremel, sandpaper and over 100 extra sharp blades for cutting the Eva foam. He painted the whole thing with automotive spray paint and now plans to give it a “damaged” effect. The price tag – around $540 worth of materials and a great deal of time.

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We’ve posted some pretty cool Transformers statues and costumes here, on Oddity Central, but the Brooklyn RobotWorks costumes created by artist/cosplayer Peter Kokis are unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

When we look around the house, in our kitchens and bathrooms, most of us see a lot junk we don’t use very often, but Peter Kokis sees the perfect materials to build his über-awesome exoskeletons and thus bring our favorite Autobots to life. Looking at his creations for the first time, your jaw suddenly hits the floor as you stare in awe, but as Peter anticipates, looking a little closer you’ll eventually say “hey, I have those at home”. It’s hard to believe, but he’s somehow able to turn a common dog bowl into the perfect cannon muzzle and pooper-scoopers into realistic shins.

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I’m a huge fan of cosplay, and although I’ve already featured a few home-made Iron Man costumes on OC, I just couldn’t help share the metal suit made by Ted Gorzkowski.

Ted is a carpenter by trade, but a talented blacksmith at heart. And since he’s always been a fan of superhero movies, he decided to put his blacksmith talents to the test and create a metal replica of Tony Stark’s famous suit. He spent months molding the pieces of metal, painting it in just the right colors and creating the arc reactors out of hundreds of LEDs, but the final result was totally worth the effort.

This Iron Man suit made by Ted Gorzkowski may not be as detailed as the War Machine replica created by cosplay master Anthony Le, but it’s definitely worthy of our praise. For more photos of this cosplay masterpiece, check out Ted’s MySpace profile.

Thanks a lot, Ted!

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The launch of Starcraft 2 was a monumental international event, but Blizzard went out of its way to surprise Russian fans of the popular RTS franchise, by featuring a life-size replica of the Terran Marine costume.

A day before the official launch, photos of what seemed to be a Terran Marine in the middle of Moscow’s Red Square appeared on the Internet. Most claimed it was just a Photoshop job, and a bad one at that, but when the real-life Starcraft Terran Marine made an appearance at the launch site, everyone put their doubts aside and began cheering like crazy.

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Japanese artist Hisako Matsumoto created a crocodile costume, complete with helmet and boots, as her graduation piece.

Before going into PETA mode, you should know the costume is completely ceramic, with not a single piece of crocodile leather on it. But it does look like a genuine crocodile costume, and that’sactually the reason I decided to post photos of it on OC.

You’ll also find a photo of the artist, at the bottom. You have to admit, she’s pretty cute.

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I’m sure you’ve seen Iron Man and War-Machine cosplay before, but I’m pretty sure you’ve never seen anything like this before.

We’ve seen some work of Iron Man fan, Anthony Le, in the past, I’ve even posted another War-Machine costume he made a while ago, but his latest masterpiece is simply too awesome for words. This talented costume creator built his first version of the War-Machine costume, before any footage from the first Iron Man movie came out, and he only used comics for inspiration.

But Anthony has come a long way, since his first costume, and is now sporting a kick-ass replica of the War-Machine costume worn by Jim Rhodes, in Iron Man 2. For the armor he used thin, high-impact urethane plates, joined together by around 1,500 rivets and washers, the helmet was sculpted from clay and enforced with a special resin mix, and the mounted shoulder gun was made from pipes and an old engine.

LEDs in the eyes and armor, and a small servo-motor that lifts the faceplate make this War-Machine costume even more real. As you can imagine, Anthony Le is a big hit at conventions, and he’s now working on other awesome costumes, for himself and clients. Chapeau!

Check out more awesome photos and a video, below.

Photos via Anthony Le

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Cromer is really big on lobsters, and the English coast town even host an annual lobster festival. This year, among the other funny lobster statues, a funny Iron-Man suit appeared.

Blogger Meimi132 recently traveled to Cromers, and during her sightseeing sessions, she managed to take a few photos of this ridiculous, lobster-shaped Iron-Man suit. I’m pretty sure you’d need to have a seriously curbed spine, to fit in that thing, but I must say, it’s pretty original.

And according to Meimi132’s reports, this is just one of 80 crazy lobster statues, scattered around Cromer. Among the coolest ones are the statues of a lobster Na’Vi, from the movie Lobatar, ant of Shreddthe villain of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. Although you couldn’t recogniold Shredder if you’re life depended on it.

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To celebrate the release of the Iron Man 2 movie, Superherohype-forums member Masterle 247 is building a replica of War Machine’s costume, complete with all his gadgets.

Masterle 247 posted some cool photos of his work so far, and I have to say it already looks very impressive. The suit is made up of high impact urethane pieces, held together by around 600 rivets, it features a shoulder minigun and rockets, an arc reactor, light-up eyes and even repulsor gauntlets.

But Masterle 247 says his creation is far from finished. He wants to make his war Machine costume bulkier, more tank-like, so every part of his body is covered when he wears it.

I’m really glad War Machine and Iron Man will be able to get together in real life soon. Oh, if you guys really meet, make sure you take some photos and send them over.

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