Clicker bait article?
If these images dont make the pit of your stomach crumple like an empty mushroom bag from the supermarket, might we suggest a trip to the doctors for a Cordyceps test or two? This all-too-close-to-real cosplay is thanks (for want of a better word) to artist and all round fun guy Jon Wilks from Bristol, who had a passion for The Last Of Us from the moment he saw it. I saw the very first trailer years ago and fell in love with the concept, Wilks tells us. I knew straight away that I wanted to make some art in support of the game, he says. Im a massive gamer but I didnt own a PS3. I was so confident that The Last Of Us would be an amazing game that I bought a PS3 the week before the game came out just so I could play it. It was the right decision, although I couldnt afford to eat for a while afterwards.
Clicky friendship...
Things didnt all go quite to plan on the day though, as a busy schedule meant that Wilks hadnt even managed to see if it would fit. The mask was the last thing I made and only really took a week to mould and paint, he tells us. Unfortunately, Emma and myself are both in full-time employment and we didnt get a chance to do a test fitting before the big day, so I had to wing it and get the mask to fit around her face on-site. But with some elastic, hair clips and some latex glue we got it to work. Shiv crafter Joel would surely be proud. Despite the knowledge that theres just elastic and a real live human under there, its somewhat unnerving to know that Wilks didnt think to add any eyeholes so, just like the clickers themselves, his model was blind for the entirety of the photo shoot.
Bricking it
The spread of the infection across the body meant that Wilks got to experiment with different materials to achieve that desirable Im actually turning into a plant effect down Emmas arm. There is a Naughty Dog video documentary called Hush and on it one of their artists shows images of real diseased skin that inspired them, Wilks explains. The images looked just like tree bark which made perfect sense for my infected model. I pulled some dead tree bark, cut it to shape and attached it to Emma with latex glue and finished blending it in with face paints.
Infection Control
Not content with his first attempt, Wilks is on a quest to fill us with even more terror with another more dramatic The Last Of Us shoot. Im working on one at the moment. Although I really like the clicker I made theres still a lot Im unhappy with and really want to do the ultimate clicker cosplay, he says. As a Last Of Us movie was confirmed, I was hoping that a Hollywood big-wig would see my images and invite me to the film set and let me make-up one of their movie models for the film. If only dreams came true
