How to 3D Print Liliya Bogomolova’s Headpiece from The Outlast Trials: Complete Build Guide

Sister Liliya Bogomolova from The Outlast Trials Season 5 is one of the most technically ambitious cosplay subjects to come out of horror gaming in years. Concept artist Hugo Richard and 3D character artist Ziyang Tan built her design around a single terrifying game mechanic: she has a fully realized face on both sides of her head, so you can never tell which direction she’s actually looking. That rear mask is not a prop or a decoration. It is the central design statement of the entire costume, and it’s the piece this guide is built around.

Her headpiece has four major components that all work together: the spiked arch crown inspired by Russian Orthodox icon halos and the kokoshnik headdress tradition, the rear skull face mask with its elaborate diamond tile pattern and exposed tooth grin, the front forehead ornaments suspended on twisted wire, and the circular eye lens mounted on the side. Each one is 3D printable with standard FDM hardware. This guide takes you from reference to printed, finished, and assembled.

Reference Resources Before You Start

The Official 3D Game Model on Sketchfab
User dishfiscal uploaded the complete Liliya Bogomolova game model to Sketchfab as a free download. Search “Liliya Bogomolova The Outlast Trials Full Model” on sketchfab.com to find it. Download the OBJ format or FBX. This gives you the actual game geometry to measure in Blender rather than guessing from screenshots. Import it into Blender, set scene units to centimeters, and use the Measure tool to get precise dimensions for every component before you model your printable versions.

ArtStation Reference
Hugo Richard’s concept art is on his ArtStation at artstation.com/hugo-richard. His “Liliya Bogomolova” project page shows the front, three-quarter, and rear views of the headpiece in the concept illustration that OreKo used as Image 1 in the reference photos above. Save the full-resolution versions of the three-panel image. The rightmost panel, showing the rear mask isolated from the arch, is the single most useful reference image for building the back mask geometry.

Key Dimensions Extracted from Reference
Using the Sketchfab model scaled to an average female adult head (approximately 21-22cm head circumference side-to-side, 20cm front-to-back at the widest):

• Arch outer width: approximately 32-34cm
• Arch inner void (the opening that frames the head): approximately 24-26cm wide, 18-20cm tall at center
• Arch band width (flat face): approximately 4-5cm
• Arch thickness (front to back): approximately 1.5-2cm
• Spike length: approximately 7-9cm for the longest central spikes, 5-6cm for side spikes
• Rear mask width: approximately 21-23cm (spans full back of head ear to ear)
• Rear mask height: approximately 23-26cm (hairline to below chin of rear face)
• Diamond tile size on rear mask: approximately 3.5-4cm per diamond edge
• Eye lens diameter: approximately 3.5-4cm

Part 1: The Kokoshnik Arch Crown

Approach A: Blender (Recommended for Pattern Accuracy)

This is where the Claude + Blender MCP workflow described in our Blender MCP guide pays off. The arch requires a curved surface with embossed relief pattern that you can describe parametrically to Claude and have generated quickly.

Step 1: Set up the scene. Open Blender. Set scene units to Metric > Millimeters. Set the scene scale so you’re working at real-world dimensions. This matters for fit.

Step 2: Create the arch base geometry. Add a Torus (Shift+A > Mesh > Torus). Set Major Radius to 165mm (this gives roughly the right arch width), Minor Radius to 22mm (the half-thickness of the arch band), and set Major Segments to 64 for a smooth arch. You now have a donut. You need only the top half. Enter Edit Mode (Tab), Select All (A), then Box Select (B) to select only the bottom half of the torus and delete it. You’re left with a semicircle arch in cross-section.

At this point the arch’s profile is circular in cross-section. The real arch has a flat rectangular profile. To change this: in Edit Mode, select the top face ring, then use Scale on the Z axis to flatten the circular cross-section into the flat rectangular profile seen in reference. S > Z > 0.4 gives a good starting compression. Then scale on Y (depth axis) to bring the front-to-back thickness to approximately 20mm.

Step 3: Create the arch inner void. The inner edge of the arch needs to follow a path that allows your head to sit inside. Looking at the reference, the inner void is not a perfect semicircle. It widens slightly toward the base to accommodate the head width, then the arch legs angle slightly outward. In Edit Mode, select the inner edge loop and scale it outward slightly at the bottom.

Step 4: Model the pattern surface. The folk art pattern on the arch face is the most time-consuming part. You have three approaches of increasing complexity:

Approach 4A (Displacement Map, Fastest): Find or create a seamless tileable texture based on Ukrainian vyshyvanka patterns. Search for “Ukrainian embroidery vector pattern” on free pattern sites like Vecteezy. Export the pattern as a grayscale height map image. In Blender, add a Displace Modifier to the arch with the pattern as the texture. Set the displacement strength to 0.5-1mm. This embosses the pattern into the arch surface as printable relief.

Approach 4B (Boolean Relief, More Accurate): Create flat 2D representations of individual pattern elements (diamond frames, snowflake rosettes, cross symbols) as separate mesh objects. Use Boolean Union to merge them onto the arch face surface. This gives harder-edged relief that matches the in-game model more closely but takes longer.

Approach 4C (Texture Paint + Displacement, Best Result): Unwrap the arch surface, texture paint the pattern directly onto the UV map in Blender, then convert the painted texture to a displacement modifier. This gives the most control.

For the primary pattern elements to model individually: the circular medallion with a three-leaf symbol appears at regular intervals along the arch. The cross-and-diamond interlocking pattern fills the spaces between. Snowflake/star rosettes appear near the arch top. Model these as separate mesh objects approximately 1-1.5mm raised above the arch face surface, then Boolean Union them onto the arch.

Step 5: Add the spikes. The spikes are separate objects parented to the arch. Add a Cone mesh (Shift+A > Mesh > Cone). Set the cone dimensions: bottom radius 8mm, top radius 0.5mm, depth (height) 80mm for the central largest spike. The cross-section is not circular; looking at the reference carefully, the spikes are roughly trapezoidal, like flattened diamond cross-sections. In Edit Mode, select the full spike and scale on Y to 0.5 to flatten it.

Duplicate this spike and scale it down to approximately 65mm for the flanking spikes, and 50mm for the outermost spikes. Position 7-9 spikes along the arch: 1 at the apex, 2 on each side of the apex stepping toward the legs, and 1 on each leg near the base.

The spikes in the reference have a subtle S-curve where they narrow then widen then taper to the point. Apply a Taper Curve modifier if you want this detail, or leave them as straight tapers for a simpler build.

Step 6: Prepare for printing. Select the full arch assembly. Apply all modifiers. Run the 3D Print Toolbox (Mesh > 3D Print Toolbox from Add-ons) to check for non-manifold geometry. Fix any errors. Export as STL.

Approach B: TinkerCAD (Accessible for Non-Blender Makers)

TinkerCAD can build the arch in a simpler form that reads correctly from a distance even without embossed surface detail.

Step 1: In TinkerCAD, create a Torus shape from the Basic Shapes panel. Set the Radius to 150mm, Tube to 20mm. Select and copy it. Paste in place. Scale the copy down slightly to create the inner edge of the band. Use the Hole function on the inner copy, then Group to create a hollow arch band.

Step 2: Select the full torus group. Use the Slice tool (accessible via the Align function panel) to remove the bottom half. You now have the semicircle arch profile.

Step 3: Add spike shapes. Use a Cone shape from the basic shapes library. Size: 8mm base, 80mm height. Flatten slightly using the Scale handles. Duplicate and position 7-9 spikes along the arch curve. Rotate each spike to radiate outward from the arch center point using the Rotate handles, not just pointing straight up.

Step 4: For surface pattern in TinkerCAD, add raised details manually using flat Box shapes as decorative elements stuck to the arch face. Diamond shapes are a Box rotated 45 degrees. Circles are Cylinders at very low height. This is tedious for a full surface pattern but achievable for key focal elements: the central cross, a few medallions at the top, diamond borders at the edge of the band.

Step 5: Export as STL from TinkerCAD’s Export button.

Part 2: The Rear Face Mask

This is the most complex single piece in the build and the one that makes or breaks the full headpiece. When someone sees this costume from behind, the rear mask is what they see. Do this one right.

Starting in Blender: Getting the Curve Right

The rear mask needs to match the curvature of the back of a real head, not the curvature of a generic sphere. If you have access to a head mannequin or wig stand, place it in front of your work area as a physical reference. If not, use the Sketchfab model’s head geometry.

Step 1: Block the base mask shape. Start with a UV Sphere (Shift+A > Mesh > UV Sphere). Set radius to 110mm (a sphere slightly larger than a human head back). Segments 48, Rings 24 for enough geometry to work with. Enter Edit Mode. Select and delete the front half of the sphere, keeping only the back hemisphere. Then trim the top (above the “hairline” level) and bottom (below the chin level) to match the mask’s oval outline from the reference.

At this stage you have a curved surface shaped roughly like the back of a head. Now you need to hollow it so it sits over a real head like a mask. Select All faces, then in the Solidify modifier set thickness to 3-4mm. This creates front and back surfaces with 3-4mm of wall between them. 3mm is comfortable for large flat areas; increase to 4mm at the edges for strength.

Step 2: Create the diamond tile surface pattern. This is the most distinctive feature of the rear mask. The pattern is a regular diamond grid with raised borders between tiles, and each tile has a sunken center with a raised 4-petal flower motif inside.

The cleanest way to create this in Blender uses a combination of a normal map applied during printing and raised geometry for the border lines. Here is the approach:

Unwrap the mask’s outer surface (UV > Unwrap). In the UV editor, you’ll see the mask’s outer surface as a flat projection. Create a black-and-white texture image (2048×2048) in Blender’s image editor. Using the Texture Paint mode, paint the diamond grid pattern as white raised lines on a black background. The grid should show diamonds approximately 40-50mm edge-length scaled to the UV space.

Apply this texture as a Displacement Modifier on the outer surface with strength 0.8-1.2mm. This physically displaces the surface geometry to create the raised grid lines. Now add a second, lighter displacement pass (strength 0.3-0.4mm) for the petal flower within each diamond tile.

Render a test slice in Bambu Studio to verify the raised pattern shows clearly in the layer preview before committing to the full print.

Alternative approach (Boolean method): Model a flat plane tile representing one diamond with borders and flower emboss. Array Modifier creates the full grid of tiles automatically. Then use a Shrinkwrap modifier to conform the flat tiled grid to the curved mask surface. Merge the shrinkwrapped tile array with the base mask using Boolean Union. More precise, slightly more complex to set up.

Step 3: The teeth insert section. The bottom of the mask, at the chin position, has a grin showing exposed upper and lower teeth with small red dots at the gumline. Model this as a separate piece that slots into a recess at the bottom of the mask.

For the teeth: Add a curved rectangular block approximately 60mm wide, 15mm tall, 10mm deep. In Edit Mode, sculpt individual teeth by cutting vertical slots down from the top edge (upper teeth) and up from the bottom edge (lower teeth). The spacing in the reference shows approximately 6-8 visible teeth top and bottom, modeled realistically with slight size variation. Add a thin ridge at the gumline where the red rhinestone accents will be placed.

The teeth slot into a matching recess cut into the bottom of the main mask using a Boolean Difference. After printing, paint cream/white, add red rhinestones at the gumline using craft glue.

Step 4: The eye dome (button eye). The rear mask has a single circular dome protruding from the surface on the right side, positioned where an eye would be. This is a simple hemisphere approximately 35-40mm diameter, 12-15mm tall at center. Print separately in clear or natural PLA. After printing, paint a small red dot at the center using a brush. Apply UV resin over the entire dome surface for the glassy depth effect (see Part 6).

On the rear mask base, leave a flat circular recess 35-40mm diameter for the eye dome to sit in and be glued flush.

Print settings for the rear mask body:

Setting	Value	Why
Layer height	0.12mm	The diamond tile pattern raises and lowers by 0.8-1.2mm. At 0.2mm you lose the delicacy of the petal motif inside each tile. At 0.12mm every detail reads.
Print orientation	Inner face down, flat on bed	The inner concave surface (the face that touches the head) prints clean on the bed. The patterned outer surface prints up and gets the finest layer quality at the top.
Walls	3	The Solidify modifier already established wall thickness. 3 perimeter lines within that 3-4mm creates a solid, non-flex shell.
Infill	20% gyroid	Enough to keep the mask rigid. The mask sees minimal structural load but needs to hold its curve under its own weight when worn.
Supports	Support Enforcers only at teeth slot	The curved outer surface prints without supports. The teeth recess slot at the bottom may need a small local support depending on your geometry.
Filament	Charcoal grey or dark grey matte PLA	Starts close to the finished dark grey-blue color. Less paint needed to reach the final tone.
Estimated print time	8-12 hrs on Bambu A1	Large print at fine layer height. Set this up as an overnight print.

Part 4: The Spiked Crown Assembly and Attachment System

Attaching spikes to the arch: The spikes attach at the outer edge of the arch band, pointing radially outward from the arch’s center of curvature. Do not just glue them onto the flat surface of the arch, they need to angle outward at the correct radiating angle.

The cleanest attachment method: model each spike with a flat base plate that matches the curvature of the arch at the spike’s attachment point. This is a Shrinkwrap operation in Blender, conforming the spike base to the arch surface. The spike then sits flush against the arch with full contact surface rather than just touching at one point. Glue with 5-minute two-part epoxy for a strong permanent bond.

If you want the spikes to be removable for transport: embed a 3x3mm square nut insert into the base of each spike, and add a matching M3 threaded brass insert into the arch at each spike attachment point. The spikes unscrew for flat packing and reassemble at the con.

Crown head attachment system: The arch crown needs to stay on the head reliably through a full con day. The approach used by professional cosplay crown makers: a millinery wire frame.

Cut a length of heavy gauge millinery wire (2mm, available at fabric stores or hat-making suppliers) approximately equal to your head circumference plus 20mm. Form it into a loop that fits your head snugly. Twist the ends together with pliers. This creates a circular wire frame that fits the crown of the head the way a hat brim frame does.

In Blender, model a channel or groove on the inside lower edge of the arch. The wire frame sits in this groove and is secured with a drop of epoxy or with printed retaining clips that snap over the wire. When you put the crown on, the wire frame distributes the crown’s weight around your head and keeps it level.

For additional stability, add 4-6 bobby pin slots to the inside of the crown: small 1.5mm grooves sized to accept a standard bobby pin. The bobby pins can be hidden in hair and anchor the crown frame to your head from below.

Part 6: Finishing, Painting, and UV Resin Effects

The finishing stage is where this headpiece either looks like a cosplay prop or looks like something that came out of the game. Every print needs a minimum of three finishing steps: fill and prime, paint, and seal. The arch specifically benefits from a fourth step: the Rub-n-Buff metal effect.

Arch Crown: The Antiqued Gold Finish

Step 1: Surface preparation. Sand any layer lines visible on the pattern-free sections (inner arch band, spike surfaces) with 220-grit. The embossed pattern surface does not need heavy sanding, the raised lines should remain sharp. Use Bondo Spot Putty to fill the seam if you printed in two halves. Let cure, sand flush.

Step 2: Filler primer. Two light coats of grey filler primer (Rust-Oleum 2-in-1 Filler Primer). The primer reveals any remaining surface issues. Sand lightly with 400-grit between coats.

Step 3: Base gold coat. Apply a metallic gold spray paint (Rust-Oleum Metallic Gold or Montana Gold in aurum). Two light coats. Let dry fully.

Step 4: Pattern differentiation. Looking at both the concept art and game model, the recessed areas of the pattern (the background between raised elements) are slightly darker than the raised surfaces. Apply a thin wash of diluted dark brown acrylic (1 part Vallejo Sepia or Games Workshop Agrax Earthshade to 4 parts water). Brush generously over the entire patterned surface. The wash flows into the recesses by capillary action and leaves the raised surfaces relatively clean after wiping. Wipe the raised areas lightly with a dry cloth before the wash dries to remove excess from the peaks.

Step 5: Rub-n-Buff. Rub-n-Buff in European Gold or Gold Leaf is a wax-based metallic compound that you apply with your fingertip and buff to a sheen. After the wash step, apply Rub-n-Buff only to the highest raised points of the pattern, the very peak edges of embossed lines and the tops of raised symbols. This creates a bright metallic highlight that reads as genuine gold against the darker washed recesses. The effect is immediate and very convincing in person.

Step 6: Seal. Matte varnish over the entire crown. This protects the Rub-n-Buff (which can smear before sealed) and unifies the surface sheen. The crown should finish as a warm satin-to-matte, not a high gloss.

Rear Mask: The Dark Textured Finish

Step 1: Base color. Spray with dark grey primer, which acts as both primer and first color coat.

Step 2: Blue-grey tone. Mix Vallejo Blue Grey (70.943) with a small amount of Mechanicus Standard Grey. Thin to a flowing consistency. Brush or airbrush over the entire mask surface. This is the main surface color.

Step 3: Diamond grid highlight. Dry brush Vallejo Stonewall Grey (70.882) over the raised diamond border lines. A stiff flat brush loaded with minimal paint, dragged lightly across the surface, deposits color only on the raised edges and makes the diamond pattern pop dramatically.

Step 4: Recessed petal motifs. Use a thin pointed brush to paint the recessed petal flowers within each diamond tile in a slightly lighter tone than the surrounding diamond surface. This makes the tiles read as three-dimensional indented reliefs.

Step 5: Gold accent for borders. A fine liner brush and Vallejo Gold traces the very edges of the diamond grid borders. This replicates the gold-edged quilting lines visible in the game model. Fine liner brushwork, not sloppy. Take your time.

UV Resin: The Gem and Lens Effects

This is where OreKo’s hybrid technique philosophy shines. UV resin applied over a printed and painted surface gives a depth and gloss that no paint can replicate. For the Liliya build, use UV resin in three places:

The eye lens dome: After painting the red center dot, apply a generous pool of thin UV resin to the dome’s exterior surface. The resin self-levels across the convex surface. Tilt the lens slowly to let the resin flow to a uniform coating before curing. Under a UV lamp at 20-30cm distance, cure for 2-3 minutes. The result is a lens that appears to have internal depth, like a real glass or crystal dome. This effect takes 3 minutes and makes the difference between a plastic print and a prop jewel.

The red gem inserts: The flat-back craft resin gems that go into the forehead ornament setting and at the gumline accent positions look better with a top coat of UV resin. Apply a small drop to each gem surface, cure, and the gem gains a wet gloss that reads as precious stone rather than plastic bead.

The ornament face surfaces: Apply a thin coat of UV resin to the face of each forehead plaque after painting. This gives the ornaments a subtle lacquer depth that reads as enameled metal rather than painted plastic. Use thin UV resin and apply sparingly. Thick application on flat surfaces can create visible meniscus edges at the perimeter. One thin coat only, cured flat under UV.

Florida-Specific Build Notes for Con Season

All three major Florida conventions happen in the second half of the year. Holiday Matsuri runs in December in Orlando. Supercon Miami typically runs in the fall. MegaCon Orlando runs in the spring but also holds fall events. Liliya’s design is perfect for Florida cons because most of the headpiece is printed in standard grey PLA with metallic paint finish, which handles indoor air-conditioned environments cleanly.

Two specific Florida considerations for this build:

PLA and con floor humidity: The arch crown is a large, relatively thin piece of PLA that will be on your head in an environment that switches between outdoor Florida heat and indoor heavy AC. PLA can sag slightly at crown temperatures if the AC environment gets warm locally. If you’re concerned, print the arch in PETG for better heat resistance. The paint adhesion is slightly more work (score the PETG surface before priming) but the results are identical once finished.

The rear mask transport: The rear mask is approximately 23x26cm and can’t be stuffed in a bag without risk of chipping the painted diamond pattern. Transport it in a rigid container (a cheap tupperware lid-sealed container lined with foam) with the patterned surface facing down into the foam. The magnetic attachment system means you can remove it cleanly for packing and reattach in 30 seconds at the con floor.