Guri's 2012 Halloween Costume Contest Entry: Her Son's Legolas

Guri

Sr Member
This year was the first we felt my youngest was ready for the LOTR series and after watching all three extended versions, he was set on learning to use a bow and dressing up as Legolas.

TO HIS MOMMY'S DELIGHT!!!

Specializing in inexpensive, creative solutions, I have been making costumes for 10+ years for myself, my husband and my kids. I have my own costume tutorial website to help others: The Realm of the Jedielfqueen

For this costume I started with a pattern I created years ago for my youngest son when he was about this size. Most of the time I don't start from scratch draping, but I take a piece of clothing that fits whoever the costume is for as my base.

jerkenpattern2.jpg
jerkenpattern.jpg


That time I used felt and decided to upgrade to a closer fabric. I found a dark gray, a brown and forest green suede cloth skirts at the thrift store but ultimately used the forest green and a more expensive olive suede cloth from the fabric store.
contestjerkin.jpg


I used a silver pen to draw on the designs.

The challenge was- how do I get this soft fabric to hang as if it was heavier real suede? AND to not fray or to need a hem??

The solution solved both issues. Heat n'bond!! I basically ironed two pieces of the cloth together around the hems of the costume. In fact, it worked so well even the photo makes it hard to see there are two pieces bonded together.

edge.jpg


For the leather pieces I pretty much always knew I was going to use craft foam. It's a technique I've been using ever since I made my husband's Boromir bracers years and years ago.
contestleather.jpg


Even though I have a photo tutorial on my website already, I still get questions on how I do this, so, I figured the best way to explain it was to make a video tutorial:

How to make Craft Foam look like Leather - YouTube

The biggest challenge of all of these pieces was how to make the boots look right. I tried at first to velcro the shoe pieces on to a pair of canvas tennis shoes, but they came off constantly or flopped around, so I ended up sewing it directly to them. Much better...

The silver shirt was pretty straight forward. For the clasp I used little metal borders I found in the scrap booking section of Micheal's as the eyes for the hooks.
contestsilvershirt.jpg


And finally, the hair. Neither my son nor I wanted to get him a platnum wig. Wigs are hot, the cheap ones tend not to have a very great hairline and I could never afford one of the net hair line ones... So we decided to forgo the long hair. When we went to Comic Con, he was called 'Link' constantly. Then, at the Ren Faire he got 'Robin Hood'! :unsure

Here he is with a bow he made himself.

contesthair.jpg


For Halloween we used extensions. I was actually going to use these for my husband at some point, but they worked out perfectly for my son.

It was my first time with extensions. They come in a single length (we got 8") strip of hair. You cut the length of strip you need and sew a clip to the ends of the strip and snap it in place.
hair.jpg


At the mall and a parade he was in, he still got confused for Robin Hood as many times as someone knew he was Legolas - BUT when someone did know who he was - most of the time they were extremely excited. *hehe*

I'm so glad we went that extra step. From various sides:

allviews.jpg


Here he is with my niece and there are more photos throughout this thread... And his bow that we bought from the Renn faire.

photoshoot.jpg


And... here is my proof photo - and a set of wood knives that we bought and painted.

rpf-2.jpg
 
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Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old

Thanks, NelBearPig! :)

Joe: I don't usually buy things, I make them. Personal choice as well as finances.
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old

ya i know i don't buy them either i make them in pepakura if you pm me i could send you the file, just make two of them and you are set...
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old

I'm so ignorant to other people's newer methods that while I've seen that word thrown around on the forum, I have no idea what pepakura is. It sounds like a spice to me. haha!

I appreciate the help, so thanks a ton for the offer, but I don't know that I would know what to do with it... is it just something where you print out the pattern and then can make it out of whatever you want? Cause THAT would save me a few steps. Pattern making is something I can do, it just is the head ache part of it for me. :p
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old

Hahaha! Yeah, tell me about it. My oldest is 14 and taller than me!!! We're not getting older, what's up with them doing it? ;)

This one is such a doll, I was stressing over some messy house contractor business tonight and walked by his room to hear "Mommy, do you need some love?" Who wouldn't say yes to that, right? So I went in and got a big hug and felt tons better. Truly a prince.
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old

This is so awesome! I can't wait to see him all done up as Leggy!

Also, JoePep, Guri is AMAZING at making props, and I'm sure she'll come up with something absolutely amazing from almost nothing! ;)
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old

Aw, thanks! :)

I looked the Legolas pepakura file thing up and saw something to download but didn't know what to do with it or how to open it. Seeing the example image so clearly will make it much easier to duplicate at least!

Here are a few more pictures.

Close ups of the vambrace and the belt:

legolasvambrace1.jpg


closeenough-1.jpg


And here was today's work, cutting the pattern for the 'suede' and drawing on the pencil mark of where the silver will go. What's weird is that when I took this picture you could BARELY see the lines, and it's all so bright in the photo! haha! It looks a serious mess... but there are quite a few lines there that aren't getting the silver pen.

Also, here it's just pinned together so I could get the lines exactly matched up because I need it to be flat to draw them...

jerkinpattern.jpg


I've read recently that the upper portion of the costume is brown, not forest green, but the brown faux suede I bought just doesn't look as good as the green.
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old

This costume looks great. I can't wait until my daughter is old enough to be interested in costuming... or resenting me for pushing her into it.

"...sounds like a spice to me..." that was the funniest thing I've read all day
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old

Thanks Arwyniel and jw3032!

My oldest used to be into costumes but now at 14 doesn't want anything to do with them. I thought about bribing him to let me make him a Captain America because he's 6'1" and has that handsome blond look. *hehe*

Thankfully my younger one is still into it. Problem with him is that he's growing so fast he might out grow this by Halloween!! I'm serious... it's already shorter than when I first measured the pattern on him several months ago.:(

While on vacation I worked to get the costume wearable to the Medieval Times in Maryland.

joeycostume-1.jpg


Next up will be the boots, the leggings and then the bow...
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old

Thanks!!

I've been working like mad on the boots and after a few major setbacks, here is the latest effort at aging this foam with the best photos I can find of Legolas boots.

bootmock.jpg
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old

Barely got this done in time for tomorrow.

Legolasfinished.jpg


My son made the bow to go with it, but we're not sure we're taking it to Philly Con or not. It's heavy and I'm nervous about the paint coming off on his costume... we'll have to make him a good one for Halloween. (and a quiver)
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old - Finished!

The boots came out very well, can't even tell they are foam. Also, your signature photo is pretty cool too :)
 
Re: Legolas - for my 10 year old - Finished!

Thanks! They look much better on the grass where you can't see I ended up making them shoe covers because the glue didn't hold.

I hope to revisit them by Halloween - but with all the walking at the con, I didn't want to risk it, and even as they were with all the velcro, they needed tape to hold them on.

Looking good and functioning as actual footwear is very tricky with craft foam. Lesson learned.

Here are a few pix from the convention:

joeybow.jpg



joeyfetts.jpg



Glad you noticed my sig photo too. *hehe*:D
 
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