my first props! The hobbit desolation of smaug.

[funkyelf]

Hello everyone,

I'm fairly new to all of this so let me introduce myself.
My name is Mathew I've been a huge movie fan for as long as I can remember.
I love Marvel and Dc comics (and their movies) and I'm a huge fan of the lord of the rings and the hobbit.

Yesterday I went to see the European preview of The Hobbit: Desolation of smaug.
And I told a friend that I'd love to make Legolas' scale armor, and he told me of this place.
So here I am!

I already searched a bit for some images on the internet.
And this is what I have found so far.

I got no clue on how to make the scale things interlock or how to make chainmail or anything like it though ( I got a boring deskjob haha)

anyone got any clue on how those scales could interlock ?
I know the arms and the torso is seperate but other then that I have no clue haha.

 

[Jordy]

I dig Legolas' new look as well and have been looking into it too. His armor looks completely leather. The scales aren't interlocking they're just layered on top of each other, either as individual scales or cut out in strips. The pauldrons are embossed and I assume are either water hardened or just glued down to a hard form to create they're shape. The collar piece in the middle I have no idea.

It's really difficult finding decent references other than whats been posted.

 

[Dvizza 1988]

Hay welcom to the rpf, I made all my armor using a four hole method that is you put four holes in a scales one at a time, I no that sounds time consuming but using a hole punch helps hope that helps

 

[Shendorion]

There seem to be three different outfits in the photos you've collected. The one in the first shot is split in the middle, with a mantle of scales all of uniform size. The ones of the mannequin being held up next to Bloom seem to have him in a prototype suit with a mantle of scales of various sizes, with similarly shaped pauldrons (shoulder armor) over them. The third one, which seems to be on the dummy they're holding up and in the production stills, looks like it's made with uniform leaves like the one from the first shot, except the front of the mantle is closed and a set of pauldrons have been laid over the shoulders.

The one with the uniform scales would probably be the easier one to do, once you work out a repeatable process for making the scales. In any case, the way to make the scales overlap is to stitch them onto a garment, starting with the bottom row, and to work your way up, alternating the scales so that the point of one scale (or leaf) lays over the edges of the two scales below it.