Boromir, Full Costume Build (Pic Heavy)

Over the past several months I've been researching and collecting bits and pieces for a dream costume of mine, Boromir from The Lord of the Rings.

He's one of my favorite characters and has such an awesome outfit, one I've been wanting to make for years and I really want to do this well.

The plan is to get this done by October where there are a couple of events I'd like to wear it too, not to mention the Hobbit premier at the end of the year.


Anyway, onto the build!

I've got most of the materials I'll be needing for the outfit already besides the leathers which I'll organise to get soon and I'll hopefully be getting myself a Stansborough Cloak when the funds are looking a little healthier too .

I have some nice velvets, satins and faux leathers I've gathered up and also some fantastic looking bullion embroided trim and a Sari I ordered from India for the collar and tunic sleeve details:

The embroided patterns aren't an exact match to the screen used costume but after looking at lots of these sorts of items over the past months these are pretty similar and will work until I find something better to upgrade with further down the track.

I was fortunate enough to score one of BlindSquirrel's Horn of Gondor kits which is such a nice piece to own and I can't wait to clean it up and give it a few coats of paint!
I've also got some accurate buttons for the tunic and a heap of jump rings for the chainmail sleeves:



Since Boromir's outfit its made up from a few different layers I've decided to start from the bottom layer and work out from there so everything fits properly at the end.
So thanks to disk 3 from The Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD and the LotR Weapons and Warfare book I managed to get some nice pics of the bottom layer of the costume.

Here's the part I'll be making first:


Step 1:
Chainmail!

I've never made chainmail before so this was a new experience. After looking at a lot of tutorials online for 4 in 1 chainmail I began weaving all those Jump Rings together. So that's pretty much all I've been doing over the past 5 days when ever I have spare time and as of tonight I almost have one sheet done for one of the sleeves:


I know all the chainmail done by Weta Workshop was originally plastic pipe cut up into rings and painted, which is what I originally wanted to do but after a lot of thought I decided to go with pre-cut aluminium jump rings.
The deciding factor was that I don't actually have any tools suitable to cut up the rings and it would save a lot of time and effort to just buy metal ones.

So that's where I'm at so far. I might take a break from weaving chainmail tomorrow and get out into the shed and start on the Horn of Gondor

The chainmail is looking good. When I was working on some chainmail (never finished what I wanted though), I bought steel wire and rolled it around a stick of approximately 1cm diameter, then took it off and cut rings of it. That might be a lot cheaper than just buying rings.

Very nice! I'm loving the chainmail. Any worry of the rings coming apart, or are they pretty snug?

Your chainmail is looking great. I'm surprised you've chosen to make it yourself rather than just buy a shirt, but that may be both a financial as well as personal decision.

I'm a huge LotR fan, so I'm looking forward to watching your progress on this costume.

I like the picks you've made for your cloth, they're definitely close enough to original.

Thanks for the feedback .

The rings were only $9US per 1000 and shipping was good too so they aren't that expensive and was a nice easy shortcut :P.

I've scrunched the chainmail around a bit (Not too vigorously though) and it's held together find. It requires pliers to open and close the rings so unless you yank on them really hard I don't see them coming apart easily.


So I have started cleaning up my Horn of Gondor, sanded it and filled in any blemishes with some body filler:


Then I primed it, sanded it back again and it's now drying out in the yard with another coat of primer on as I type so more pics to come soon

Awesome, what ideas do you have for his sword?

I already have a United Cutlery Boromir Sword which will be great for photoshoots and to display with everything once its finished but I'll probably make a wooden version for when I wear it at public events like conventions and The Hobbit Premiers.

Looking good man! Excited to see the progress

This is looking great!

I've been working on the Horn some more over the last few days and it's nearly done.

I just sprayed a white base coat over it, then some gold over the bands followed by some silver Rub'n'Buff for the silver details. I then did a brown wash over the gold and some black over the silver to age it a little.
The white "bone" parts I then applied some thin watered down layers of off whites and browns followed by another white drybrush over the top to add some texture.

So this is how it's looking so far:


I just need to braid some leather for the strap, attach it and it's done!

Ok well 1) this is turning out awesome already! I love seeing builds like this of more random characters!

2) Where did you get that buillon trim?!?!?!?!?!?!??!? I desperately need loads of stuff like that!

That Horn of Gondor is beautiful!!

Thanks guys

Eveningarwen, I found the trim on ebay after a few searches, here's the stuff here: Hand-Beaded Trim. Gold Bullion on Rose Velvet | eBay
For the bullion emboided sari I just searched for "Vintage Sari" and found that awesome one I ended up with.

Update time!
The Horn of Gondor is now finished, after a few attempts at round braiding (after never braiding anything before) I finally started to get the hang of it and after a couple of hours I ended up with a strap for it.
I attached it to the Horn and here it is pictured with my UC Boromir Sword:


Big thanks to Blindsquirrel for making the Horn kit, I'm sure if I'd attempted my own scratch built one it wouldn't have turned out anywhere near as nice

Now back into the chainmail, still need to make that other sleeve :S

If you need it, here's a tutorial on the 4-cord braid used on the Horn of Gondor:
How to make a 4 Cord Braid

very cool

Looking good! Are you going to go from a bought pattern or draft your own when you get to the sewn bits?

Rikarus said:

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awesome work! Subscribed!!!


Found some reference pics that show his sleeve under the chain for you.

The Leaves of Lorien

Thanks, I already have heaps of reference pics though, especially from the costume gallery on the DVDs which has some nice closeups of all the layers.

Sparticle said:

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If you need it, here's a tutorial on the 4-cord braid used on the Horn of Gondor:
How to make a 4 Cord Braid

Wow that's so much easier to understand than a lot of the other tutorials I looked at, though it's already done as you can see in my previous post. I might re-do it eventually so link bookmarked

SailorEarth said:

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Looking good! Are you going to go from a bought pattern or draft your own when you get to the sewn bits?

I'll be doing a bit of both, modifying some patterns that I have for some pieces and making my own for other bits.


I've finally finished the chainmail sleeves so I can start on some of the sewing stuff now:

(The bottom sleeve looks bigger in this pic but it's mainly due to the top one being a bit more "scrunched up" and from the angle of the pic. Not that it really matters since the ends won't be seen anyway :P.)

I've got some grey raw silk I'm going to quilt for the gambeson sleeves and embroid some silver stars onto then attach it to the leather shirt i'm yet to make. Hopefully I'll have some of it to show of by tomorrow night

Ok, so I've thrown together the beginnings of the undershirt:


Before I can sew up the sides and finish this part I need to make the gambeson sleeves so I can sew them onto the shirt before attaching the chainmail.

Here's a close up of the screen used costume piece I'm trying to replicate:


It's not quilted in the usual way a gambeson is (not that I'm an expert), but it has the raised criss crossed detail through it so I've tried to mimic it with my machine on the fabric I'm using.
I marked out all the lines with some tailors chalk then folded on each line then ironed along it, then I sewed right down the very edge of the fold. I then repeated it in the other direction:


It's been a long process, especially for something you wont even be able to see once the costume is all on over the top of it but when I know something was there on the original costume I do my best to make mine look the same.

So here's where I got to with it tonight:


Nearly finished it, then I can cut out the sleeves and embroid the little silver stars into every few squares.
I'm considering trying to dye it a darker grey first since this grey is a little lighter than the original...

That's it for now, stay tuned for more soon!

Wow, great work so far! I can only imagine how tedious putting together that chainmail must have been!

Wow, the attention to detail here is great!

I'm getting close to finishing the undershirt now.
I completed the sleeve pieces and sewed them on to the shirt, I then hemmed the ends so I could see where the embroided stars would go.

I then used my sewing machine to embroid the stars on using the zigzag stitch with 0 stitch length and a couple of narrow stitch widths to get the right effect:


And the finished embroidery before sewing the up the sleeves:


So now I've sewn up the side seams and arm seams and punched holes where the leather loops will go to attach the chainmail.
Here's the shirt so far with some of the maille over it to see how it will look:


I just need to add eyelets and laces to the ends of the sleeves, add laces and a zipper to the front, hem up the bottom and of course attach those chainmail sleeves.

....And it's done!:


Once I have all the other layers done you'll only see about 5% of this and it will probably be the piece I spend the msot time on with all the chainmail, embroidery and criss crossing seams...:P

Incredible attention to detail. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the costume.

I'm liking this as well, attention to detail is just stunning brah keep up th' good job.