She’s an inventor, a risk-taker, an exciting ball of energy waiting to explode on a new project. Meet Marisa Austin, an 18-year old junior at Salem High School who spends all the free time she can get building armor. It’s not your average “medieval” armor, it is cosplay armor.

Austin gets home and immediately sets down her backpack. She then sets out the supplies needed to create a masterpiece from Cosplay foam, metallic paint, welding glue, sand paper, measuring tape and a whole tub full of materials and tools. She spends all day on the floor with her phone and laptop, scouring the internet for measurements and examples of the armor she is about to build. She sculpts it into her own image, making it her own, an original piece of artistic mastery.

Austin claws at the foam and bends it to her will with a heat gun to make it fit her.

She etches in designs with a hot knife with precise movements. She messes up on a small detail but plans on covering it up with the metallic spray paint. She enjoys this kind of thing. It keeps her away from reality and sets her off into her own world as if she was the blacksmith making armor for the hero. She has invented and created ever since she was small, always imagining breathing life into a large project.

She doesn’t want to leave.

When reality calls, she puts down the hot knife and attends to the call. She knows she cannot be in this world forever. She knows she has responsibilities and tasks not yet completed.

Once they are, she will return with her armor waiting for her in the living room.