It’s easy enough to add pixelated characters to any photograph using Photoshop, but when you opt to inject classic video game characters into real life without photo manipulation, that takes a little more thought and effort. That’s why DeviantArt user ChozoBoy’s pixelized Samus Aran and Chozo Metroid costumes are so darn impressive whether viewed in person or on camera.
These well-designed costumes are made with little more than cardboard, glue and paint. But they are still incredibly visually striking when viewed from the side.
In fact, the costumes are all the rage at the Otakon Convention where they managed to stand out even when put together with other pixelized costumes, like these Minecraft characters.
The use of multiple layers of cardboard to allow for maximum movement make these costumes look far more like the real video game characters they were made to represent.
On an interesting side note, “Chozo,” the name of the bird-like characters that served as surrogate parents of Metroid hero Samus Aran, actually means “race of bird-humans” in Japanese. Although, they admittedly don’t look very birdish in their 8-bit forms.
If you’ve noticed that all the pictures up until this point were taken from the side, there’s a good reason for that. The illusion only works from the side, as it would have been practically impossible to make 8 bit characters like these look so realistic in a 360 view. Even the game was made as a side-scroller originally.
But in case you’re curious just what the costume looked like from the front, allow me to destroy the illusion for you. On the upside, at least you can see how it is operated so well.
And here’s a shot of the Samus Aran costume while it was being constructed. As you can tell, the work that went into these is undeniably impressive.
If you were going to make any 8 bit character into a pixelated costume, who would you choose? Personally, I think I’d go for Tails from Sonic the Hedgehog. He was always my favorite.
