Witch King of Angmar / Nazgul Robe

[SothaSil]

Hello!

I've been checking out this forum for some time, but this is my first time posting

Anyways, I'm making a Witch King costume and I already made a few parts out of plastic, but I'll have to start working on the robes soon, and this is where I hit the wall....

I have never done anything with any form of textile, in fact I never made my own costume before. All I have done so far were plastic models and wooden aeroplanes.

Luckily (I hope) the WK robes don't require fine work, since they look so ragged and dirty, but I still have no clue how to make it...

So I was hoping I could get some tips from here, so my questions are:
-What type of fabric is cheap and still looks close enough to the movie version?
-Does anyone know of any kind of a guide on making robes? Preferably with a lot of pictures
-Does anyone have any templates they are willing to share? Or anything that could help me with the basic shape of the robe?
-What would be some easy techniques for making the robe look ragged and dirty?




And here is a pic of my finished helmet and gauntlets:

(I stuffed a black t-shirt with a pillow, just for the looks )

(It's a bit blurry, sorry)

I start off by drawing a 3D model in Blender, then unwraping the mesh, printing it out and then I make a paper model. Then if it doesn't turn out good enough I just redo the whole thing. Once the paper model is good enough, I move on to cardboard, and from there to plastic.

Every "metal" part is made out of plastic, I dont know what kind, since I got it for free. It was used for some exhibition and has been gathering dust in the attic since then. Its easily moldable when heated, and quite hard once cooled. The only thing I had to pay for so far was spray paint and glue. And I already had all of the tools, thanks to my previous hobies.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask

 

[StrikingCosplay]

Check out my build.
http://www.therpf.com/f24/witch-king-angmar-first-major-build-pic-heavy-200053/

I used burlap, linen, and a polyester mix. It might not be as grand as the movie robes but it is much lighter and easier to wear!

The real movie robes were much more complex and expensive.
Check out Ring Wraiths for an indepth look into the robes from the movies. It was the best resource I could find.

 

[SothaSil]

Hi, thanks for the reply.
Thats an awesome costume you made there, I really like your robe!

I'm checking out those links now and they look very useful, the secon one has some dead links, but the other ones seem good enough.

 

[Froggie]

That armor looks really good. Are you planning on making the rest of it as well?

The robes aren't super complex, but they still require a lot of sewing, as there are a lot of layers and they are quite wide.

The link StrikingCosplay posted is great, but it's had a lot of dead links for years now.

Alleycatscratch also has a tutorial section on distressing costumes which is a good starting point.

Here's a complimentary forum post that covers some bases that are gone from alleycatscratch, like pictures of one of the wraiths with and without the hood, which gives a better view of the different robes.
http://newboards.theonering.net/forum/gforum/perl/gforum.cgi?post=120548;

According to the costume makers they used mostly raw silk for the way it fell. As they used quite a lot of fabric for these (the links mentions 54 meters each) it'd be very expensive for you to make it out of that if you don't strike gold and find a really cheap source.

The problem with polyester is that it's basically plastic, and as such it does not age the same as natural fibers. It's also pretty shiny and that might be a problem depending on what mix you use.

Linen could be a decent substitute, as it takes to aging really well and is not super expensive, but to get a lot of it would probably require a bigger budget as well.

I just photographed a costume shirt to use as an example of linen fabric in Slimills AC costume thread, so I thought I'd show an example of that here as well.

This is linen that I washed and tumble dried many times to get it to soften, make it less glossy and to "raise" the fabric, which is basically small tears and damages in the fibers on the surface. This is just general conditioning though, and does not cover the heavy tears and damages that are present in the original costumes. More on that later.


The ringwraith's robes have a lot of this aged texture in them, so this would be a tip on how to get that right, just do it a lot more than I did. Sadly polyester doesn't react the same way to this as linen does, but maybe you could get some of the fabric in polyester mix and other in linen?
That's another tip that's worth thinking about: make the different layers out of different fabrics. If you look closely at the original costumes they seem to use different weaves and weights of the fabrics, so doing the same thing could make yours look good as well.

You could also try looking for curtains or other finished fabrics with the right feel to it and then dye it black yourself. Keep in mind that polyester mixes don't absorb color in the same way, or at all though.

Different layers have different textiles in them


Detail of the lower edge


If I'd give you advice it would be to use linen/cotton or some other natural fiber for the garments that are the most heavily torn and ragged. It's much easier to work with when aging. To get the costume to this state of distress and wear there's no one single "magic bullet" way of doing things; you need to use a mix of different techniques to make it look good. I'm by far no expert in this, but here are some examples on what effects I've been able to get by experimenting.

The patch was washed without a reinforcing stitch at the edge, so it frayed. It was then sanded with medium grit sandpaper. The right side is sanded and the left side is not sanded yet to give an idea of what the sanding does.


The edge of this patch was unpicked one thread at a time using a large needle. This left only the "vertical" strands on each edge, which were then sanded with fine sandpaper until they became soft and unraveled into extremely fine hairs.


This sleeve cuff was torn using a rasp against a wooden board. Laying the fabric down at the edge and working away at the edge gave a torn result, which was then also sanded to get it soft and aged.


The board and rasp used in the process.


These images are taken before any dirt and grime was added, which also adds to the effect.

I'm working on documenting some distressing experiments and effects for my Sirius Black costume which is also supposed to be very ragged and grimy, so that might help when you get to the aging bit. I have no further progress uploaded yet though.

In short, distressing and aging is all pretty "easy" in that it doesn't require expensive tools, but it's still quite some work to get it to look right.

 

[SothaSil]

Thanks! Yeah, I'm planing to make the complete armor, might skip the thigh parts though in case I start runing short on time. They seem the least visible part too.

Looks like its linen and cotton then. I looked up the costs and looks like I can get both for about 10€/m, so the price might get a bit high (for a college student ).
I could probaly use up some old cotton shirts, and dye them black and make the inner layer out of them, and then use the linen for top layer.
Do you think that could work?

Thanks for your tips about making the robes look ragged, it was just what I was looking for, and it looks suprisiingly easy.

I know it's a bit early to ask, but what about the dirt? I guess the simplest solution would to just get some dirt and rub it on, but I'm afraid I'll be leaving trails of dirt everywhere I go... Know of any more permanent way to add it?

 

[Froggie]

Keep in mind that linen wrinkles like crazy, which could be bad if you want the same flowing feel that the robes have in the movie.
Cotton is generally less prone to wrinkling as far as I know. It also tends to be way more affordable, especially for someone in your situation, where every penny counts.

Using old shirts for the undermost layer is a good idea to reduce costs. Just watch out for the price of dyes, as doing a lot of coloring could easily escalate the budget quickly.

10 euros a meter is not that unusual or particularly expensive, but if you're on a tight budget it's too much when you need this much. My advice would be for you to look at any company that sell thick cotton curtains and to calculate what price per meter they go for. If you manage to find something black on a sale it can easily bring in a lot of fabric for a lot less than what's usually asked per meter.
Also visit a lot of second hand and thrift stores and look for curtains or fabric sections. There's bound to be something there, and if you just search you're going to find some stuff that you can use. This can net you fabric that's a fraction of the price you'd be asked to pay elsewhere, but the downside is that you need to do a lot of legwork and search through shops to find what you need.

You will never find a perfect match for the fabric using this method but with some work you can find good stand-ins and still keep food on the table.
You could also dye these cheap second hand fabrics if they're the wrong color but have the perfect feel and are cheap, but keep in mind that not all fabrics can be colored. Cotton, linen, wool, silk and acrylic (or so I've heard/seen mentioned) fabric can be dyed with some work, but polyester and other synthetics will not take color, neither will mixes of polyester with other natural textiles, at least not consistently.

As to what to use where, it all depends on what the fabric feels like. I know that this is cryptic, but it's really difficult to say exactly what will work. In general you will want to have heavier and thicker fabrics on the outside layers and thinner ones in the inside layers, but I'm no expert on how they did it in the movies, that's just a guideline from how things usually work clothing-wise.

On the distressing, it is easy. It's just also really easy to overdo it or to not do it enough. You get a feel for it by doing it, so test it out with some of your spare fabric and work up some experience before starting and you'll be fine.

For the dirt, the easiest solution is of course to just wear it on a rainy day and walk through mud patches. You can brush of mud when it's dry, which will still leave some on and minimize trailing, but it might not eliminate it completely. Rubbing it on might not produce the most natural looking result though, but this all depends on what you want from it.

Another way could be to use acrylic hobby colors or fabric colors. Take some mix of browns and muddy nuances, mix them up into a sludge and dip the robes in them, or put them in a big tray and stand in it to let it soak into the edge of the robes. You could also paint it on by hand, but that risks looking more manufactured.
I don't know exactly how this works, as I've never done it before. I'm just speculating in how a more permanent effect could be achieved, and that popped up. I'm going to do something similar with blood and ink stains for my Sirius Black coat, so I might have something conclusive to offer after I'm done with that.

 

[SothaSil]

Oh, cool, thanks again for the info

I'm working on pauldrons now, I got the basic shape, and now I'm working on the webbing, which is way more time consuming than I first thought...
Hopefuly the rest of the arm armour will be easier, might skip the Blender part too, since its basicaly just plates.
And after that it's on to legs.