Two Hobbit costumes

[saluksic]

Here is a generic hobbit costume I wore for Halloween this year. It involved one productive trip to the thrift store, an unmodified sheet opf cloth from the fabric store, and a tiny bit of wool roving from the crafts store. I put it together the night before Halloween, and I think it came out real nice. The pipe I borrowed from a friend, and the wool is super glued onto my feet.

For the premier of the Hobbit III: Bilbo's Revenge we are hosting a "dwarf feast" before a midnight showing next week. I decided that I needed a dwarf costume, and narrowed in on Gloin. I bough loads more wool roving and a child's snow cap, and hot-glued small patches of the wool on the head and chin-strap. I just need to add some jewelry, and a bit more bulk to the beard.

The next hardest part are the gloves, which I wanted to get out of the way. I used a cheap pair of hardware store gloves as a frame, and cut out pieces of craft foam to go on top. These will get painted after the obligtory 50 coats of PVA.







I only have a few more days, so hopefully the next few night are as productive as the last two!

(Does anyone know if modpodge or sanding out brush-stokes can quicken the time on PVA sealing? I'd like to avoid adding a bunch of thin coats in favor of a smaller amount of thicker layers.)

 

[sebastian]

Love the hobbit look.

Good job.

Sebastian

 

[geek]

Dude, I am LOVING what you have done on Gloin so far. Those gloves look super good! And your hobbit costume is really cute! I hope to see lots of updates in the future. (-:

 

[Yrien]

The gloves look great!

I don't know about sanding thicker coats, but I've sealed with PVA/water only using 3-5 coats before painting and not had much problem with it, so you might be able to get away with fewer coats if you're in a rush. Though I've never done anything that will take as much abuse as gloves, so your mileage may vary!

I need to make a big bulky beard soon and have been looking at crepe wool hair but haven't been able to find the colour I'm looking for, so I might look into wool roving too. How much did you use for your beard (approximately)?

 

[saluksic]

I'm not sure why I've taken so long to update this. I finished the costume with the help from some seamstresses the night that we hosted a big party for the midnight opening.

I finished the gauntlets:


I bought some clothes at the thrift store and some fabric from Joanns, which was good material, but too light:


...so I dyed it darker. Perfect match! This took a long time, tons of rinsing, and was a learning experience as I've never dyed things before. I boiled a pack of cloth dye then soaked this huge length of material in it.


We cut and started sewing the taberd. My friends Kyla and Alexxa do this as a hobby and for local theater, so they were lifesavers, making this piece in every free minute they had:


Here is the final version, at our Dwarf Feast '14, after seeing the movie:


And a group shot of some of the other guests:


I look much taller in person.

I love this costume and it was a thrill to pull it together in a little over a week. It is such a cool looking outfit, and I like seeing it hanging in my closet and having the wig hung up behind my TV. Thanks for looking!