Thorin AND Thranduil, in only 1 month. Yikes.

EvilOverlord

New Member
Hey all...

Figure I should start a post here, given that I've only bothered to post once since signing up (but love lurking and seeing everyone else's stuff!)

3 weeks ago, I decided that I'd dress my husband up as "Thranduil" for the premiere of The Hobbit: DoS. I'm just getting back into costuming after a LONG absence from pro sewing. (I did mostly spandex costuming for sport, before).

I've been feeling kind of underestimated / overlooked in the local costumer's clique/group/market, so I decided to pick the most elaborate costume that my husband would be able to pull off, and use it as an excuse to show off what I can do, a bit. Two weeks later, I have a finished costume for him:

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A few days later, I had the idea that I should do myself a Thorin costume to go with it, seeing as how I had a couple more weeks to go before the premiere. So... I'm 4 days in to my build now. Figured I'd share some progress pics, in case anyone can use it!

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I've got pretty much everything done at this point, aside from the tunic (but all of the plating is ready for it) and the gauntlets. (I should take pics of the Blue & Leather/Fur coats...).

Trying to think of what all info I should include here.

All of the armour pieces are done from Sculpey. Same with all the jewelry (The hair bands, earrings also - done, but not photographed)

The toe boxes are craft foam and plastic canvas, sprayed with bronze "hammered metal" texture spray paint, then sponged with dark brown acrylic and wiped down.

Boots were built on thrift store winter boots.
 

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Went to a friend's house for a leatherworking lesson... and made these! SO happy with how they turned out. Going to do a dark wash over them tomorrow, to tone that blue down.

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Thank you!

Ok, guess I should update this - I did finish everything in the two weeks! I'm going to be lazy and just copy/paste everything from the blog entry I posted today :)

First off, the day that I went to learn to make the bracers, my husband started building me an Orcrist.

He started with a sheet of plastic – very similar to the kind that cutting boards are made from. He cut, sanded, and beveled it, before passing it off to me to sculpt the hilt.

He attached the hilt, primed and sanded it many times, and finally sprayed it a shiny metallic silver – you’d never know it started as plain white plastic!

I added the final touches – detailed painting on the hilt, raised details on the blade, and a few crystals attached to the very end of the hilt. Gorgeous!

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This whole time, we were stressed out about the wig. We had ordered two wigs online, which were to arrive on December 3rd.. giving me plenty of time to take the wefts from one and sew it to the other.

Well… a week after the supposed delivery date, it was declared lost in the mail. (I’m cutting out a lot of the drama here, including hours on the phone with UPS – it was a LOT of stress!)

Then, the next day it arrived. When I opened the package, one wig was completely the wrong colour, and the other one was very… girlie. There was no way it was going to work for me (see the second photo below… I look REAL amused, eh?). I decided it was time for me to learn to make wigs. I think the lost package kind of broke me! We went to a weave supply store, bought some bulk “braid” hair, and I set about making wefts for my new wig on Thursday – the morning before the movie premiere!

It took all day, but the wig looked really good… aside from the “kink” to the hair fibres. I put the wig on my husband and styled it that night, adding the braids and hair jewelry.

The next morning I decided to try ironing the hair, and that went well – smoothing everything out well. Thorin doesn’t have straight hair, though – it’s wavy. I didn’t have curlers, a curling iron, or anything of the sort, myself… so I just braided the rest of the hair and ironed the braids to set the hair into waves – it worked perfectly! Added a couple strands of grey hair at the temples, and it was done:

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With all of THAT behind me, it was time to deal with the beard. I’d never done a beard before, and I am NOT good with makeup.. so this would be an adventure. It took me about 2 hours to build the beard, mustache, and widow’s peak right on my face, but I loved how it turned out! I used leftover braiding hair, and a ton of liquid latex:

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And here's the finished costume:

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We had a great time at the premiere, took about a million photos with the other costumers. This one went kinda viral on Tumblr, which was fun:

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So we were inspired to go out on Sunday and did a photo shoot with a friend... all cheesy engagement style photos. Freezing cold, but had a blast! Here are a few favourites (all images below are copyright John Rubbo)

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That's one hell of a turn around!! Should put all those people back in their place I think :) You guys look amazing

Thank you kindly! Spite costuming is great for motivation! LOL!

One of the two local costumers that's gotten condescending with me (the less-awful one!) LOVED the costumes, I don't think I'll have to worry about any future underestimation issues :)

The other one has not said a WORD. Should be interesting to see if there is any further "talking to me like I'm a beginner AND an idiot" instances, going forward.

Husband has thoroughly enjoyed the whole process, and I think making the Orcrist set something off in him. We're going to be making him Thranduil's sword next, but that'll be a while. I just gave him permission to build himself a CNC laser cutter to do that, but he has to finish rebuilding our kitchen before THAT.
 
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After a ton of fun with this costume... I've decided to redo the crown AGAIN. The first wasn't fitting quite right, the second fit well but wasn't super accurate to the movie, AND I'm not fond of how fragile the polymer clay feels.

So, I've started work on what should be the final one. I spent a lot more time on the wire frame this time, and I'm really happy with the shape and everything. It'll be covered in one layer of fiberglass (OMG WHAT A PAIN. I think it was a great idea, but in practice... maybe I should have tried it on an easier project for my first go at fiberglass!), then another layer of resin-soaked fabric strips (For better control in sculpting), and then probably a bit of Bondo for texture/sculpting, before painting it and adding the leaves.

If this one doesn't turn out perfect... I don't care. I won't be making another, LOL!
 
Looks really great!

I wish I could choose costumes I could build in weeks. I'm always grabbing the biggest, most ridiculous thing I can find and then frustrating myself to no end when it takes me months to get it done.

Kudos to you!!!
 
So I just realized that I never updated this.

Halfway through making the fiberglass crown, I read about Instamorph. Ended up abandoning the fiberglass one, in favour of just sculpting it from plastic.

It turned out perfectly!

Not only does it look better, it's far more comfortable and easy to wear. Super light - my husband forgot he was wearing it on multiple occasions, kept it on for about 12 hours, no problem!
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That crown is stunning!! A+ work!!!

Plus the beard you put together looked great!!! They are hard to pull off and yours looked just perfect. Well done!!
 
Thank you!

The beard in the pics, I glued it right on my face, bit by bit.

I ended up getting sick of doing that - it takes like 2 hours each time I wanted to dress up! So I did a plaster cast of my face recently, made a latex base, and built a beard up on that. It's not quite as natural / clean looking as the one pictured above, but it takes like 5 minutes to put on. I'll deal with more visible edges, LOL!

Here's a pic from a convention a couple weeks ago, with the prosthetic beard.

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Here's a couple a friend took, because I just realized that pic is crap:

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