can you offer any advice for constructing the robes?
First off: considering the colors of the cloth you have to decide if you want to recreate the costume as they were made, or if want them to look like they appeared on screen...after lighting, photography, color grading, etc..
The original costumes probably were not as black as they appear, but I wanted mine to look like I remembered them: BLACK!
...and for the overall look: don't be to hard on yourself about the kind of cloth and about getting "the real thing". I got different kinds of cloth, some more cheap than the others. They only should have some weight o them. One kind of cloth I used has some silver threads in it...did you notice?? probably not!
Also the original costumes had something like 15 meters of cloth. My costume has less than half, which is already enough to carry to a convention. So there might be some layers missing on mine...
Alright, here's what I put on as part of my costume in (roughly) the order I put it on:
- dress in general black clothing (Boots, long pants, longsleve with turtleneck)
- shoulder padding from a cheap anti-riot suit to raise my shoulders. My head piece increases my height by 8-10cm so it would look a bit stupid if my shoulders were not raised a bit, too (you could use football padding, but the anti-riot suits have upper-arm armour, which helps creating the illusion of my arms being attached at a higher point. otherwise it would be more obvious that your'e just wearing shoulderpads... not sure if I explained this right!?)
- rather large, black t-shirt to hide the anti-riot padding around my neck
(- occasionally I took a small backpack, filled it with something light and bulky - like newspaper, or stuff I brought to a convention, like packing material...whatever - put the backpack on, but upside-down and quite high, to create a "hump" on my back.
Now for the costume itself:
- Put on the "iron boots" ... Your'e probably not going to be able to bend down that well later on...
- under-robe with trumpet-sleves (I adjust the length of the robe with safety pins depending on weather or not I'm wearing the "hump", so just leave it a little longer when you make it. The sleeves will get pushed into the gauntlets, so length is not very critical either)
- put on the sword-belt and other belt(s) (I have a only decorative belt which I wear almost around my chest...also helping the illusion of being taller)
- sleeveless robe with attached cloak/cape. This also has some long triangular pieces sewn to it (leftovers from cutting the trumpet sleeves) to look more "wild". This is open at the front and so I hast to be fastened up with some straps of cloth.
- put on the head-piece. Mine has the cloth attached to it and I have to close the hood at my throat with some straps.
- put on the gauntlets and stuff the sleeves in there a bit, so that everyone can see your gauntlets :cool (and it's also more practical that way)
I hope this helps.
I'll try to remember to take pictures next time when I put it on.
