This Superhero Makes Cyberpunk Prosthetics and Gives Them Away for Free
Above Nicholas Harrier’s desk stands a shelf of shins. “The collection of failures,” he says, sitting at his office chair.
Harrier is referring to a shelf full of prosthetic covers: decorative skins for artificial limbs. He stands to show me two of the early models. They are primarily made from foam and silicone but look like hard metal armor. The aesthetic is taken from comic books. “These are just experiments,” he explains. “Just trying to see the different layers, textures, and things.”
Harrier is a prosthetic technician, and the decorative skins sitting on the shelf were not good enough for his perfectionist's eye. Some didn’t fit correctly; others didn’t have the look he intended. They’re reminders of what to avoid and what to do better.
Harrier himself lost his left leg when he was 28. He created his own decorative cover three years ago. It’s pure cyberpunk, a collage of worn iron plates and faux tubing. He bends down to flip a small switch, which lights up a plastic circle in the middle so that it changes from green to blue to purple. Every cover he shows me is do-it-yourself. When I ask how he learned the skills to make these skins, he tells me, “It really was just YouTube. There are some really good people out there, though. I give them all the credit.”
He points to another shin, unfinished. His next project for himself.
“This is hand-carved,” he says. “And the idea is that when it's done, it'll look exactly like H.R. Giger’s aliens from the movie Aliens.”
Prosthetic covers are often created to look hyper-realistic, like skin, but that isn’t Harrier’s goal. His covers look futuristic, mechanical, and inorganic.
Aesthetic protective skins for artificial limbs (or “covers,” as they are known in the world of
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