Some of Ramirez’s “Warhammer” armors have earned millions of social media views. A handful of his costumes appeared in a 2025 online commercial for Scottsdale’s Octane Raceway. Some, including an 8-foot-tall Dreadnought, are on display at the San Diego Comic-Con Museum. Next month, he plans to bring the biggest and most ambitious project of his cosplay career to San Diego Comic-Con: a towering “Warhammer” Saturnine Terminator costume armor that will stand more than 7 feet tall and ride atop 12-inch stilts. “This bad boy is gonna be huge,” Ramirez says. It will be his 19th Warhammer costume in four years. It’s also his last competition piece, as Ramirez says he’s stepping back from cosplay contests. The reasons behind the decision are both familial and practical. Some of the family members and friends he previously enlisted to wear his costumes at conven- tions have either moved away or had their fill. Ramirez also wants to make attending cons less stressful. “I want to go back to the fun part of it,” Ramirez says. “The competition is nice, but it’s a lot of work and very stressful.” This weekend, Ramirez will attend Phoenix Fan Fusion 2026 alongside friends and family, all of whom will wear his previous “Warhammer” costume armors. He won’t compete in the event’s costume masquerade, but will instead spend a few hours away from the grind of finishing the Saturnine Terminator for SDCC and having fun. “Phoenix Fan Fusion is definitely where my heart is,” Ramirez says. From comics to cosplay Like many geeks, Ramirez’s path into cosplay began with enjoying comic books, science fiction and a childhood fascination with far-flung and imaginative worlds. He grew up in Oxnard, California, roughly 35 minutes from Hollywood. His mother introduced him to “Star Trek” when he was 8 years old. She also exposed him to kung fu movies, Godzilla films and other cult favorites. He was also into comic books as a kid and was particularly fascinated by the god-like Marvel character Beyonder. Ramirez says the character left a lasting impression. “He comes from another level of reality and is super-powerful, like a god almost,” Ramirez says. “He can make things appear from nothingness like magic.” The character stuck with Ramirez. Decades later, after he began crafting costumes, it inspired his nickname, Beyonder Joe. “When I began to create and started imagining what I could do, it felt like magic happened,” he says. Ramirez admits it took years to reach that point. Cosplay didn’t enter his life until 2018, when he began dabbling in the art form. After devouring YouTube tutorials from cosplay creators like Odin Makes, Ramirez crafted a Hellboy costume complete with the iconic anti-hero’s Hand of Doom built from EVA foam. “I’ve always loved Hellboy,” Ramirez says. “He’s this character who needed to be redeemed and became a protector of humanity even as a demon himself.” Ramirez admits it was more of an intro- duction than a breakthrough. “It was very crude,” he says, laughing. Geeks at Phoenix Fan Fusion, then known as Phoenix Comic Fest, loved it, which convinced him to keep his cosplay pursuits rolling. His family’s reaction was less enthusiastic. “My brother, my son and everyone else in my family was like, ‘Oh no, we don’t get dressed up for conventions. We just go,’” Ramirez says. They’d soon change their minds. The following year, Ramirez’s brother Michael, who also works in local law enforcement, approached him about creating costumes inspired by Judge Dredd. “He goes, ‘You know, I really like Judge Dredd.’ He was basically telling me to make him a costume with actually telling me,” Ramirez says, laughing. “I was like, ‘Brother, we’re both cops. We wear this crap for work every day. Why do you want a costume of this?’” Ramirez agreed to do it, but gave it his own spin: Judge Dredd … in space. He reimagined the fictional cop as a heavily armored intergalactic knight and crafted four costumes for himself, his brother and some friends. Ramirez says the costumes were solid, but “very rudimentary.” He wanted to aim for something bigger and better at the next year’s Fan Fusion. Around that time, he started getting into “Warhammer 40,000” coViD-era cosplay In early 2020, Ramirez was planning to cosplay an Ultramarine Captain from “Warcraft” after he’d begun playing the popular tabletop wargame regularly with his son, nephew and brother. Then COVID hit. After the pandemic shut down the world, Ramirez spent countless hours inside his garage honing his skills at shaping EVA foam and crafting costumes. “I was just practicing, practicing, prac- ticing, practicing to get my skill up,” he says. “I spent the COVID years teaching myself how to make this stuff better.” Armed with a straight-edge razor and countless YouTube tutorials, Ramirez experimented constantly. He built helmets, armor pieces and props. When Halloween arrived, he handed many of them out to trick-or-treaters because his garage had become overcrowded. In 2022, Ramirez debuted his first “Warhammer” Ultramarine Captain armor, albeit colored purple instead of the proper blue. Fans immediately pointed out flaws. “They’re like, ‘There’s no purple Marines,’” Ramirez says, laughing. Instead of becoming defensive, he listened. He returned to the garage and rebuilt everything. “Every generation gets better and better, because my technique, my technology and my approach gets better,” Ramirez says. The following year, everything clicked. conquering Fan Fusion anD other cons When 2023’s Fan Fusion hit, Ramirez was prepared. He’d rebuilt his Ultramarine Captains. He created additional characters, like Sisters of Battle and a Chaos Warrior. At that year’s Fan Fusion costume masquerade, Ramirez marched on stage in his “Warhammer” costumes with eight other people. Despite an awestruck reac- tion from a packed crowd, Ramirez thought he’d lost. “I started taking my costume off and I almost fell asleep,” Ramirez says. When his name was announced, he was stunned. “It just blew me away,” he says, “that kind of love and recognition.” Later that year, Ramirez brought his “Warhammer” armors to San Diego Comic-Con. He won Best in Show, Audience Fan Favorite and a Costumer's Guild West Guild award. More accolades followed in 2024 at Tucson Comic-Con, where he won a best in show award. In 2025, Ramirez stunned the crowd at Phoenix Fan Fusion’s costume masquerade with another small army of “Warhammer” armors, including a towering, mech-like Dreadnought standing 8 feet tall. The massive creation helped him win second place in the Fan Fusion costume masquerade and racked up more than 1.1 million TikTok views. It's currently on display in the San Diego Comic-Con museum. “It’s an amazing costume,” Ramirez says. All of Ramirez’s adventures in cosplay came at a cost, though. By 2022, Ramirez had developed severe carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, as years of cutting and shaping EVA foam had taken a physical toll. “I couldn’t turn the blade to cut the foam,” he says. “It was just excruciating.” His wife, Holli, convinced him to seek treatment, including surgery on both hands. Ramirez credits her with helping save both his cosplay pursuits and his ability to continue building. “My wife has done so much for me,” Ramirez says. “She’s also my painter. I can’t paint fine details to save my life, so she does it all.” >> p 13 Joe Ramirez, center, in his workspace with friend Michelle Dickenson, left, and nephew Noah Ramirez. (Hector Arellano)
