Thorin Oakenshield

DamnItSasha

Member
Hey all,

This costume is taking me forever, mostly because of how much I procrastinate, but I figured I'd make a thread to track my progress and keep motivation up. Hoping to finish it for CONvergence in July, but my end goal is DragonCon.

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Started with a dark brown/black lace front wig. I added to the hairline and added in some white (actually it was ash blond because it made the hair look filthy) and hand crimped it all with my flat iron. I lucked out on a lace beard on ebay, it was super cheap and came with some bonus mustaches! I had to trim the beard, but I just bought a beard trimmer the other day and I'm going to try to give it a more even trim. Also probably going to go in with some markers and give it some color variation to help it blend more with the hair. I got some ears from Cottage Emporium on Etsy, and made myself fake eyebrows from the bits I trimmed off my beard. That about covers the face, here was my makeup test:
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Still need to make my hair beads and ear cuff.

As for the outfit, it's all just bits and pieces as of yet. I made myself a muscle shirt so I won't be a scrawny dwarf.
IMG_2849.JPGIMG_2852.JPG Must admit, I am having WAY too much fun being a tiny muscular man. I'm going to be doing a smooth top layer of spandex and paint it up to look like a chest and be a Victorian Strongman for Halloween. But anyway, it looks super lumpy in a few areas because I used outdoor lawn furniture foam because it doesn't hold heat or moisture and I don't want to pass out while wearing this costume if I can avoid it. Best part, which might be TMI: I made the abs and top of pectorals big enough that I don't have to bind my boobs and I still look like I have a flat chest. That'll help with comfort, for sure.

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I'm planning to emboss the velvet for his jacket thinger, so that's my homemade embossing stamp. Then there's my slow armor bits progress. I sculpted them and am casting them in resin. At first I was embedding fabric rivets, but I've gotten lazy and I'll probably just glue them now. I started painting them to try to stay motivated, but they still need weathering and I still need so many. The belt buckle needs some serious work. It's made of craft foam and it pretty much looks like craft foam. Going to coat it in resin and give it some texture and such. Also the "stones" need to be a bit more teal.
So that's where I'm at. Lots more to go.
But I did find the perfect ugly fur coat to cut up for Thorin's , but before I gutted it, I took some Makleshield pictures since the coat literally cost me the $20 in my pocket:
thorinpimpinshield1.jpg Wish me luck on staying motivated!
 
So my room is now covered in floating tufts of fur.
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But at least I've started his coat. The base leather coat is an ebay score for like $10. It is SO hard to find leather coats that don't have front or back seams or any weird little detailing. Thorin's coat has braid along the seams and no pockets, but I think the pockets will be nice at con. Have not decided if I'll do the braid or not. Possibly not since the seam on mine is lower than I would need it to be.
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Since the buckle still looked so much like painted craft foam to me, I coated it in resin. Then I took a dremel to it to sharpen edges and also give some texture, but I ate into the foam a few times so I'm thinking I should go a bit thicker on the resin first.
IMG_2858.JPG I don't know if you can even see the attempted texture. It's mostly just at the top.

That's the only progress today, I slacked off and went to the movies. Oops.
 
That muscle shirt is fantastic. I love the overall shape! It's great to not have to bind like crazy to get the right body for under a costume, so I really envy you that. I nearly passed out at a con this year because I foolishly smooshed the girls down a little too thoroughly. Sure, I probably looked fairly Jack Sparrow-ish when I started walking in an especially wobbly fashion, but I looked a lot less like him when I was frantically yanking sports bras off in a corner of the bathroom. :/
 
Awesome progress so far! Also, your "Makleshield" picture had me giggling. I can't wait to see the rest of the costume. :)
 
That muscle shirt is fantastic. I love the overall shape! It's great to not have to bind like crazy to get the right body for under a costume, so I really envy you that. I nearly passed out at a con this year because I foolishly smooshed the girls down a little too thoroughly. Sure, I probably looked fairly Jack Sparrow-ish when I started walking in an especially wobbly fashion, but I looked a lot less like him when I was frantically yanking sports bras off in a corner of the bathroom. :/
Yes, I feel that feel. You should get or make a binder, they work much better than sports bras. Mine has a velcro side open and it's great for quick escapes. Every con season I tell myself I'm going to stick to female costumes and every season that flies right out the window!
You could even make a binder out of a sports bra, btw, just sew an nonstretchy panel over the front of a sports bra. It flattens, but the back is still elastic so you can breath and not snap ribs.

Awesome progress so far! Also, your "Makleshield" picture had me giggling. I can't wait to see the rest of the costume. :)

Thank you! I can't wait to see it either. Mostly I can't wait for it to be done.
 
Very cool! I ran across this a while ago and thought it had some really great ideas. Check out her Thorin posts: Learn-Something-New: Thorin Oakenshield
Yes, her site pops up on my google searches often! I like that she used cork board for her buckle

Go, Sasha, go Sasha, GO! Looks amazing!

And you suck; you get a muscle suit, I get a fat suit. *jiggles belly at you*

Gimli, do you even lift?
You know you love the fake belly.
 
In that first photo with just the wig you kinda look like Lorde. I really like your muscle suit, I've thought about doing something like that under my Vader costume as I'm not a champion bodybuilder.

What material are you planning for the oak branch shield?
 
In that first photo with just the wig you kinda look like Lorde. I really like your muscle suit, I've thought about doing something like that under my Vader costume as I'm not a champion bodybuilder.

What material are you planning for the oak branch shield?

Aaayyy, I will take that complement, she's all kinds of fabulous!

For the muscle suit, I did green upholstery foam for the shoulders because I didn't want there to be a lot of squish from having heavy costuming on it, but other than the top, I am really glad I went with the outdoor lawn furniture foam, it is significantly less hot. I can actually feel the difference while wearing it.

Probably making the shield out of upholstery foam, then coating in electrical tape, then plastidip. I did the foam wrapped in tape thing for a few other props and it's so much easier than trying to seal it. Might do resin instead of plastidip, but I've not thought that far.

While I'm at it, I should share my technique for how I'm trying to keep everything to scale.
scalewhole.jpg (you should probably all ignore my tumblr url and never ever go look at it. Just sayin')
 
Had a fairly decent day of work.
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So I did gold middle points for my belt diamonds, started weathering the bits I already have made, and coated the belt buckle in resin and dremeled some texture onto it. I am pleased that it looks significantly less like painted craft foam. Gotta finish up the stones for it tonight or tomorrow.
Sadly I'm almost out of spray paint, which is not sold in the city of Chicago. So I will have to try to bribe someone with a car to drive me to the suburbs for more silver. Maybe I'll actually get to sewing soon.
 
I had the day off, so I got a lot of work done.
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Bracers of craft foam and leather, finished buckle (until I get some gold rub n' buff), attached the fur to the leather jacket, though I still need to adjust it a bit, and I started laying the armor. I also drafted sleeves.
 
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Been too busy to do much costuming lately. I've still gotta weather the hell out of those bootcaps, but this costume's still inching along in the 4 hours of free time each evening.
 
While I'm at it, I should share my technique for how I'm trying to keep everything to scale.

Wow, I think that's the most inventive method of scaling things I have ever seen. Simple yet perfect :lol. Besides that, FANTASTIC job on everything, loving the progress on this, the attention to detail is great.
 
Wow, I think that's the most inventive method of scaling things I have ever seen. Simple yet perfect :lol. Besides that, FANTASTIC job on everything, loving the progress on this, the attention to detail is great.

Thank you! I've been doing it for years and it makes scaling so much easier.
I'm hoping the details pay off, there are already so many amazing Thorin costumes out there that it's pretty intimidating.

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All I managed to do today after work was weather the boot caps. His are a really hard color, but I went with browns over silver.
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Small update because I had to pause on Thorin to make a few other smaller costumes for Convergence and DashCon.
I have gotten to the point where I need to get everything glued on to see how many of each armor bit I still need.
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I'm still waiting for leather for my belt and bootstraps, but does anybody have any experience dying real fur?
I've googled the hell out of this, but have not had much success. I found a thing about using concentrated RIT dye on a taxidermy forum, but it didn't take very well and made the hyde both crusty and salty. I'm not going to bother with hair dye, since the fur is so thick. I think at this point my best bet is to go thrift something else with the right color fur for his boots, but if anyone has any hands-on experience past hearsay or google, I'd be interested.
 
Are you worried that you'd need too much to make it worth the cost/effort? Box hair dye might be your best bet, depending on what kind of chemicals they used on the fur to make it shiny before it became that supersweet coat.
 
Small update because I had to pause on Thorin to make a few other smaller costumes for Convergence and DashCon.
I have gotten to the point where I need to get everything glued on to see how many of each armor bit I still need.
View attachment 342027

I'm still waiting for leather for my belt and bootstraps, but does anybody have any experience dying real fur?
I've googled the hell out of this, but have not had much success. I found a thing about using concentrated RIT dye on a taxidermy forum, but it didn't take very well and made the hyde both crusty and salty. I'm not going to bother with hair dye, since the fur is so thick. I think at this point my best bet is to go thrift something else with the right color fur for his boots, but if anyone has any hands-on experience past hearsay or google, I'd be interested.

what kind of fur is it?

heres some info

dyeing rabbit pelt
Dyeing Rabbit Hair Part 1 - YouTube

this one is a long read on fur dyeing and tanning
Principles and Practice of Fur Dressing and Fur Dyeing, by William E. Austin?A Project Gutenberg eBook.

I think you can try a test piece if you feel up to it. concentrated rit dye should work as long as after rinsing the dye out that you lotion and hydrate the hide with leather oils

heres a company that sells dyes specifically for fur
Fur and Feather Dyes and Colorants | Organic Dyestuffs Corp
 
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