2/29/12: REBLOGGED ON TUMBLR BY MR DANTE BASCO HIMSELF! [link]

RUFIO! RUFIO! RU-FI-OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Pic of me in my Rufio cosplay from Friday of SDCC '11. I realized I never got around to putting a picture up of it, so I guess I might as well


Costume made by Ismael Rivera (my cousin, basically me plus 6 years)
Worn by RJ Sosongco
Photo courtesy of Seiya235 on flickr
Character is Rufio from the movie Hook

Rufio, played in the 1991 movie "Hook" by noted Filipino actor Dante Basco (Zuko of Avatar: The Last Airbender), is about as mainstream a Filipino character as we're gonna get, haha. My cousin Ish and I are both fans of the movie, so in 2007 he decided to make a screen-accurate Rufio costume. Ish saw many Rufio costumes online, but few of them had the level of quality he sought for; most had only a few fringes, few if any extras like the multiple necklaces or the bracelets and earrings, or just red spraypaint and spiked hair in place of Rufio's impressive tri-hawk. To build his screen accurate costume, Ish had his original VHS copy of the movie on a constant loop, and was taking screengrabs and doing online image research for months as he built the costume. He won 2 separate Halloween contests in 2007 and 2008, and then I borrowed it for 2009 and then again for SDCC '11.

Specs, from what he could remember of it:
- Leather jacket from Goodwill was torn apart and reassembled into the vest, loincloths, wrist bands, and sword holster. Black pleather and red fabric was also bought to create the fringe.
- Black denim was ripped according to screengrabs
- Red tights were originally a dark, dull red, more like the boots, so I bought bright red ones (My contribution to the costume )
- $40 worth of wooden beads, painstakingly threaded to each fringe of the vest and loincloths
- Black and red t-shirts were cut at the sleeve and midriff; sleeves of the red shirt became the cuffs above the boots.
- Fake bones and claws were bought and placed on the wristbands as well as made into two necklaces and an earring (it loops over the ear to avoid having a piercing or a clip)
- Red feathers were bought and hot glued together into 3 arcs for the tri-hawk. The arcs were then bobby pinned into my hair. When I wore it in 2009, my hair was longer, like this:

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Alas, this year my hair wasn't at the length it should've been. Oh well
- Originally the shoes were just going to be red converse, but Ish found a pair of red ladies' boots that ended up being perfect for the suit. They're actually really comfortable.
- The Pan sword was originally a knight-style plastic sword. Ish cut off the original handguard, added half of a real coconut covered in lacquer, then spraypainted the blade gold. He has a friend that fences/handles swords, and the fencer said for a plastic sword, it was actually really well-balanced.

This got a lot of Rufio chants, crows, and plenty of "Bangarang!". I plan on making my own Rufio cosplay so I don't have to keep borrowing Ish's, haha. Ish himself plans to make the battle armor at a later date.

Picture from the front, courtesy of OPLover:

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