Legolas's Belt [NEW PICS 08FEB2012]

[Sandman0077]

Re: Legolas's Belt [NEW PICS 04FEB2012]

I'm currently waiting to receive an email back from someone who made buckles before, hoping to buy a cast from him. At this point there is not much else to do but wait for the buckle. Thanks for all the kind replies!

 

[Guri]

Re: Legolas's Belt [NEW PICS 04FEB2012]

It's beautiful!!!

Are you planning a costume or was this just to feed your leather working interest?

 

[Sandman0077]

Re: Legolas's Belt [NEW PICS 04FEB2012]

I wanted to do the whole costume but I live in Kansas, so there really isn't any costuming events near me to validate the whole thing. Being in the Army I move around so I can't have much a of 'prop room' set up because I would hate to tear it down for deployments and moving.

I will probably end up selling this once I'm done with it. It's not a perfect recreation, but it could serve someone else more than sitting in a box at my house lol.

 

[Sandman0077]

Re: Legolas's Belt [NEW PICS 04FEB2012]

UPDATE

Got the belt buckle in today. Excellent resin copy (credit to Rick over at ucforums.com). I'll be either cold casting it or using aluminum.

 

[Guri]

That's beautiful!

 

[Sandman0077]

Agreed. And I lucked out because his version was for a 1" belt, but he had luckily made a copy of an official buckle that was for 1.25" belts. Perfect fit.

 

[CelticRuins]

Gorgeous work! *drools over tooling*

 

[CelticRuins]

I know I'm reviving an old thread here, but I'm currently desperate -_-.

Did you have any luck casting that belt buckle?? I really need one at the moment. My bf and I commissioned out the Legolas rig to a friend and well...he seriously faltered in areas. One of them being the buckles.

I'm in need of 3 quiver buckles as well. I've sculpted my own but have no background in casting work. The quiver buckles have to be made out of some sort of metal strong enough to hold the back rig. Either that or I'm going to have to do what they did in the movie and make a dummy rig underneath his silver shirt out of elastic staps, and make the quiver straps fake.

If you or anyone can help me with this, I'd be most grateful!

 

[Zlurpo]

I know I'm reviving an old thread here, but I'm currently desperate -_-.

Did you have any luck casting that belt buckle?? I really need one at the moment. My bf and I commissioned out the Legolas rig to a friend and well...he seriously faltered in areas. One of them being the buckles.

If you or anyone can help me with this, I'd be most grateful!

In this thread I documented how I made buckles for a costume I was building. They're sculpted in clay and molded. I then bent a wire-hanger skeleton, which went inside the mold. I used fiberglass resin as a casting agent, and made casts of buckles that had a metal inside. They held up pretty well.
Not as good as metal buckles, but it might work!

 

[Sandman0077]

Sorry, but I never got the buckle casted before I deployed. I attempted to use soldering wire, which worked rather well, but the impurities we very evident in the final product.

 

[CelticRuins]

Hmm...I may try this for atleast the belt buckle.

I'm pretty sure the rig won't be able to be held up with anything but a strong metal though. It's fairly heavy.

Damn movie magic! I'm sure the knives were dummies as were the arrows. The straps you see him wearing are fakes.

HUGE pic of the straps/buckles here: http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/3/35833/2529056-legolas.jpg

The back of his silver shirt was completely open and there was a hole in the jerkin in order to snap up the rig to an inner strap support system.


Of course it may just have been held up by the actual straps just with a light rig. Unfortunately ours is beyond light with the replica knives straped in.


Even if I may dummy handles, the wooden scabbards to the knives are still heavy.

 

[CelticRuins]

Sorry, but I never got the buckle casted before I deployed. I attempted to use soldering wire, which worked rather well, but the impurities we very evident in the final product.

Aww that sucks. Totally understandable though.

I tried contacting Rick CottonTree on Flickr, but doubt he'll respond. I saw somewhere that he doesn't take casting orders anymore. :cry

Maybe if I beg?

 

[Guri]

I had no idea there was that much faking with Legolas kit and costume... the illusion is shattered. But, it does make sense to keep Orlando looking light on his feet like an elf, he couldn't be lugging around so much weight.

This brings up the interesting question of movie visual accurate or movie costume accurate - which do you go for when you can't do both? :unsure

 

[CelticRuins]

We actually cover this in the panel we're doing on Sunday at Dragon*con! It's gonna be a huge topic!

Along with how to correctly pack armor and easily breakable costume pieces for a flight. My fellow panelist, Kate, is flying in from Saskatchewan with Gil-Galad armor ><!

 

[CelticRuins]

Alright, so a friend gave me this idea the other day to use until I can have it casted in metal. I'll have to wait until after Dragon*con to do that.

I decided to cast the buckles using JB Weld. JB Weld Casting

It seems pretty ghetto, but they're fairly strong.

Two semi-sanded buckles and 2 fresh pulls.

As you can see, the fresh pulled ones have air bubbles. Which sucks, but they're still pretty strong if I can fill them in. I've dremeled them down to be smoother and I've got a primer on them right now.

I'll most an update later after they're finished being painted. I did a weight test on one of the smaller quiver buckles, using a coat hanger and adding more weight to it. It seemed to hold pretty well! I did have a buckle break last night, but it hadn't finished hardening, and had only been out of the mold for an hour.

*fingers crossed* I have every intention of getting these made in metal before The Hobbit comes out!

Also, I DID get a message back from Rick CottonTree through Flickr, but he wanted $40 a buckle...which is far out of my price range seeing as how I need 4 buckles! I have 2 friends who know metal casting, so we'll see what happens!

 

[CelticRuins]

Alright, dremeled a bit more...painted then sanded that off and dremeled again lol

But I think it looks good enough until I can have a metal one cast later this Fall!

 

[Spiderman1962]

looking good!

 

[Sandman0077]

Looks good enough to me! Glad you got the dremel to work on the JB Weld. Anytime I try to use a sanding bit on it the JB Weld decides to shatter lol.

 

[akrembug]

NICE JOB!!! I might just have to make one for myself.

 

[CelticRuins]

Looks good enough to me! Glad you got the dremel to work on the JB Weld. Anytime I try to use a sanding bit on it the JB Weld decides to shatter lol.

Which bit did you use? I just used a normal sanding bit, not a cutter.

Never use a cutter on plexiglass either...DUMB IDEA :behave

I will say, after taking it to Dragon*con, the quiver pack was too much for the stapping buckles. It snapped -_-. But be damned if it didn't look fairly decent!

The belt buckle held up fine, as it isn't under about 30 or so lbs of stress. Again, that movie kit had to be a fake. Real knives with thick wooden scabbards, real arrows and a thick leather quiver is too much. Even when I switched it out for a metal, inaccurate buckle at the con, my poor bf had the biggest line welt from all the weight . It also made the costume buckle in a few areas, seen here:

So that's something I need to work on, and something to take note in while making this costume!

I think I may actually make an inner strap system, just so the costume sits better without so much weight over the top of it. I'm also having the buckles recasted in actual metal as to not have another cracking incident -_-.

And also, the buckle itself didn't break! The metal rod was the problem. So, a cold cast buckle will hold up, structurally after 24 hours. My only concern is strengthening the metal rod that creates the buckle.