Let's be honest: Nick Valentine is the best part of Fallout 4. It's somewhat strange that Fallout hasn't featured a hard-nosed private eye until now, but when Bethesda finally introduced one, it really knocked it out of the park.
The fact that he's a busted up synth prototype just makes the whole thing even better — his artificial origins and ties to the pre-war era make his character one of the most dynamic in the entire game.
Of course, you'd be forgiven for thinking that cosplaying as Valentine would be impossible. Fallout characters have never been easy to recreate via costume — most are either horribly mutated or wearing gigantic suits of armor — but Nick Valentine is quite literally full of holes. Not only that, but there are a bunch of different layers of artificial skin and internal clockwork — even for a skilled cosplayer, creating a Nick Valentine cosplay seems like it'd be impossible.
That's why you can never underestimate cosplayers. The folks over at Arcanum Order haven't just created a somewhat accurate mask of everyone's favorite synth, or a "humanized" version of the character — they actually managed to create a spot-on cosplay based off of Nick Valentine's busted-up mug:
Even at first glance, the level of detail is outstanding: the way the skin starts to crack and deform around the edges, the way his eyes glow, the patches on Valentine's coat — it's all spot-on, like it was taken directly from the game.
Looking closer, it's a bit easier to see how Arcanum was able to pull it all off — it's basically a few different layers of prosthetics, with the holes in Valentine's head being painted over in black. That's not to say it'd be easy to make something like this: even properly applying a single piece of a facial prosthetic can be an absolute nightmare, and trying to layer multiple custom pieces while simultaneously creating the illusion of empty space sounds nearly impossible.
Not only is it possible, but this is just a test run. That's right: in an interview with Some Nerd Thing, Arcanum confirmed that the pictures above are from an unfinished version of the costume. If anything, it's only going to get better from here.
So, not only is Nick Valentine the best character in Fallout 4, he's also one of the best cosplay in 2016. Not bad for a guy with so many holes in his head.
For more of Arcanum Order's ridiculously awesome cosplays, check out the official Facebook page.
