Epic Sauron Costume

[dreamofdahlia]

Hi Everyone! My name is Jen. I'm new here and just trying to figure out how all this works. This is our Halloween Project 2016 (kind of a big deal around here). My 10 year old son came to me this year wanting to be the Dark Lord Sauron. After asking for the last 4 years I finally decided we had the time and means to do it right. I'd like to know what everyone thinks of it. This is my first time working with foam or making any type of armor. (In the past our projects have been mainly building or sewing.)

I'd like to thank member cadu1990 for his posts on his version of Sauron. I studied his pictures and it helped me through a couple of parts of the costume. Thanks again.

 

[Wimismith]

Looks really good, how'd it go over?


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[dreamofdahlia]

Really well. We had 5 people ask to take his picture while trick-or-treating and several comments that he had the best costume of the night. I was satisfied with that. Then I posted it on Instructables to enter their contest. It was chosen for their homepage as a featured costume and I was given a free premium membership. Then it was picked up by ThinkGeek on their facebook page then a couple of other sites. It's had almost 10,000 views in 5 days on Instructables. It's pretty unbelievable. So I figured I needed the opinion of some experts in this field of replicas and costumes. That and I need to start planning for next year's project. It's going to take a lot of work to top this one! That's why I'm here!

 

[dreamofdahlia]

Here's some details of the project. The whole costume was layered foam and textured with a dremel.

 

[dreamofdahlia]

 

[dreamofdahlia]

 

[dreamofdahlia]

 

[dreamofdahlia]

I'm a photographer as my day job (which explains the number of pictures, I'm sure...). This costume was made with EVA floor tiles and craft foam. The mace started out as a nerf mace that I added to. If anyone is interested the Instructable is here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Epic-Sauron-Costume/ It's admittedly not a very good instructable because I didn't document my steps well. The instructable was an after-thought, but it discusses my process and materials. The project took a few to several hours a day for 2 months - any free time I could get.

I welcome any hints and tips for my future endeavors. I believe the next project is the Witch King of Angmar.

 

[lincoln3x7]

Awesome work! Its a bunch of time and work to build a Halloween costume for a younger kid. Ive spent plenty of evenings building stuff for my kid that I knew would be short lived... I love the effort and result!

 

[MB Trooper]

This is amazing. Great work. I love that your son is that into LoTRs.

 

[dreamofdahlia]

Thank you! Fortunately for this one, I can adjust the straps and make it a little bigger for a little bit of time. Memories will last forever though

 

[George]

Jen,that is an amazing costume you made there.I'm glad it is such a success both on and off the internet.Thank you for sharing this project with us.I hope you do more.
I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy by the way; the story,the music,the costumes...everything was just right.

 

[Takanuva]

The mottling texture on the armor is astounding. You should make a armor stand or rig up a cheap mannequin to show this suit off, I've seen some cool "Hall of Armor"s done on the Predatorium.

 

[dreamofdahlia]

We actually have a custom duct tape "mannequin" we made in the process of making the armor! I figure he can display it on there. Just trying to come up with a way to attach the arms and legs that doesn't require pins.

 

[GilliGen]

Maybe imate in this topic but i gotta say this is the cutest lord Sauron i have ever seen, A+ for this, you have done a really good job there

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[Zlurpo]

What did you do to create the hammered look on foam? It looks great!

 

[gothic]

looks great all that pain in the arse dremmeling paid off

 

[BigStick]

What did you do to create the hammered look on foam? It looks great!

Check out "Punished Props" Youtube vids on their Skyrim armor. Great videos on foamsmithing. Basically its a Dremel with a rounded stone bit and ALOT of repetition.

 

[Uridium]

While this is without doubt a great looking build, I want to comment about something else....

"My 10 year old son came to me this year wanting to be the Dark Lord Sauron."

Now that's parenting done right. You win the internet for today..... have fun with it. (please don't turn it off)

 

[TRCViper]

Good gracious! That's one lucky kid! Nice work!