Jetblack Cowboy Bebop Outfit

Final result and shopping list

Here is a link to the final spreadsheet of parts and materials.

It's been a life long goal of mine to create custom cosplay outfits. I began with easy outfits that required no crafting skills such as Aang. Cosplaying Aang was as simple as getting a one piece jumpsuit and a bit of face paint - not much complexity. I quickly became bored with simply putting on an outfit and face paint.

So, in February of 2026 I decided to take the plunge and get serious about actually building real my own outfits. I naturally gravitate towards bald characters. So, when I was deciding this year's outfit I was choosing between Kratos from God of War and Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop. I was leaning towards Kratos but to correctly create that character I would need to make his weapons. Many conventions have strict rules regarding weapons. It is possible to bring crafted weapons into a convention but only if the exterior of the piece is covered in EVA foam.

As I sat planning, I realized that the skill level required to create a plastic weapon core and cover it with foam was beyond my competence at the time. I therefore shifted my focus from complex characters such as Kratos to a more approachable character such as Jet Black who would still afford me an opportunity to learn EVA foam-smithing and 3D printing skills. Jet Black is a perfect fit for this because his outfit is a simple combination of three categories:

• Clothing for the base outfit
• EVA foam-smithing for the leg pieces
• 3D printing for the robot arm
  

The Jet Black outfit began by creating a game plan and a spreadsheet. The first crucial choice to be made was what materials to use for the leg guards and robot arm. I decided on using EVA foam for the leg guards and 3D printed PLA+ plastic for the robot arm. Plastic leg guards would have been very heavy and likely not fit me well. And likewise a foam arm would appear flimsy. The actual clothing was very simple and consisted only of a maroon under armor compression shirt, a leather vest, and blue pants.

Foam Smithing

There are several ways to approach the creation of custom foam pieces for armor. The duct tape template method is highest-skill and results in the highest level of personal fit for the end piece. I chose not to pursue this method so that I could focus on the other challenging aspects of the build.
I therefore chose to start with a pre-made template provided by SKS Props. I then followed his video tutorial explaining how to construct the leg pieces using the template he provided. The process of building the foam leg pieces involved a lot of trial and error. The largest hurdle was actually choice of razor that I used to cut the foam. My initial attempt to use a standard box cutter resulted in very shaggy. I ended up using the OLFA 25mm utility knife and 25mm blades. I was careful to sharpen the blade between cuts using a ceramic knife sharpener.

Once I got a handle on how to make cuts appropriately the foam work was smooth sailing. Below are a few more short videos and images showing the progression from foam to painted armor.

3D Printing

In the same way that I chose to use a premade template for the legs I elected to purchase a premade .stl design from Etsy for the arm. This decision turned out to be very wise because several months were spent debugging the 3D printer itself. I own an Elegoo Neptune 4 Plus which is ideal for this sort of work. I found an excellent generic looking robot arm on Etsy that I chose to use.

However, the printer was purchased in the fall of 2024 and had been sitting unused for quite a while. Particularly the roll of remaining filament that I had was exposed to the air for all that time and had absorbed a large amount of water. This embedded water turned to steam during the first printing session and resulted in a destroyed print head as shown in the picture below.

The solution to this was to use a filament drying box. This box works by heating the filament and is able to reduce the relative humidity down below 10% which is ideal for printing. Once that was in place there were a few more minor issues with leveling that were ultimately fixed through careful calibration and placement of the printer on a stable surface.

The picture below shows the two pieces of the robot arm after printing and before painting.

Final Touches