Skyrim Mage Robes

Sir Nils Olav

New Member
I'm a novice sewer (I've done 2 other mini projects and 1 other major), but I'm building up to doing really good costumes. This is a thread of my experimentation and theory on the Skyrim mage robes. I figured that these robes would be challenging but not completely impossible. I aim to have my final rendition of the project completed by June 2019. I'm currently in the rapid prototyping stage of the function, in cheap materials before I move onto looking into borders and more aesthetic aspects. Below is the original reference image and my sketching on paper. the last image is of the wrap but unwrapped!
mage robe.pngtunic drawing.jpgtoga wrap drawing.jpgtoga wrap design.jpg
 
I started with templating two shirts which I own and wear, and fit me well. I intend to make the final product in a semi-stretchy fabric, most likely a wool-blend as I wish to stick to traditional materials which someone in medieval age would make their tunic out of. So I worked with two semi-stretchy shirts as my tunic would have a similar fit. Why not template a dress close to a tunic design? Dresses often require zippers, or more complicated designs to achieve what is actually quite simple. (I have worked with zippers before but didn't feel it was necessary or on theme to the mage robes.) So I stuck to quite a simple idea which was reflected in my research to work - template a shirt but make it longer! I layered the two shirts to get the best of both worlds in a sense - I wanted the chest fit of one shirt and the torso fit of another, I layered them so that when I traced them on butcher's paper I would get the outlines I wanted. Once I outlined the shirt part I made a quick estimate on where hips etc. are. as you will see later I placed the hips slightly higher than necessary, and will make appropriate changes on the next prototype. The quick estimate was done by taking the circumference of say the hips, and dividing it by 4 to get the "half" width of the template in the first picture. I folded the shirts in half to get the most symmetrical design possible, as there's less chance the shirts will stretch or sit funny on the paper as you trace. Once you place the half template on the fabric you're cutting out of, you simply outline it, mark the points to pivot on and flip it and outline again. I also made sure to give it a centimeter or a few all around the design to allow for seams and little cutting mistakes.

finding bust and waist size.jpgtunic template.jpg
What a mess!
my mess on the first day.jpg
 
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Here comes the first sewing component! Pretty simple, pin the edges of the two tunic pieces working from the middle of an edge and working out to avoid creasing. At one point I started pinning up the head hole - not a good idea, almost sewed it closed! I have a pretty old sewing machine, but it does the job. I worked with a straight stitch because the practice fabric I'm currently working with does not stretch at all. However I must make sure that when I'm working with stretchier fabrics like wools, etc to use a zigzag stitch which stretches with the fabric instead of breaking. Another thing, I'm sewing on the inside - like the material is inside out so that I don't get any bare stitching. I simply followed the line of each edge, making sure to go forwards, back and then forwards a little at the start to hold on the start of the stitches before continuing onto the rest of the edge, again forward, back, forward a few stitches at the end. I remember on my first mini project (a pencil case) I often stuffed up this step, causing all this messy catching of the thread. So make sure when you forward, back, forward to gently pull the two threads (from needle and bobbin) away from the needle and feeder - a handy trick which saved my life once I figured it out. The picture below includes the tunic after some experimentation, I'll explain that later.

sewing machine diagram.jpgsewing machine.jpgfull tunic.jpg
 
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After putting on the tunic, I found it to be quite baggy on the waist but quite well fitting everywhere else. As a result, I brought the waist in a bit, careful not to take it in too much otherwise it will be too tight to get off over the chest. Keeping in mind the final product will be in a stretchier fabric - so I could technically take it in completely. However for the sake of experimentation and taking the tunic on and off constantly, I took it in a little - mainly to see the effect of my taking-in method. Extra note on taking in, I did take in the shoulder too - as it jutted upwards too much and I wanted it to gently round over the shoulder.

waist close up.jpg
 
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Note: you will see sharpie positively everywhere on the tunic as I mark marks, notations, etc. On another note, sleeve time! I'm still experimenting with how to pull off a sleeve very cleanly - I'm considering making a mock shoulder and trialing sleeve creation techniques. My technique was very simple, simply take a long rectangle - pin it along the edge of the shoulder and sew that up. Make sure to do this inversely, so that when folded right-side out, it is normal and functional. There is still a long unsewn apart along the part running down the arm, this is folded inwards towards the inside of the arm and pinned. You then put the shirt and sleeve inside out and sew down the arm. Done! I also put in the botched shoulder/arm part - the one on the right I cut in way too much, but the one on the left (and successful sleeve) you can see is basically just a continuation of the side line of the tunic. Plus I made the sleeve shorter than in the mage robe, as once you master a sleeve you can make it as short and long as you want.
 

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I thought it would be a cute experiment to look into a collar, it is suggested in the design but you cannot really see because the cowl covers it. Plus it offers more mobility in the shoulders as the fabric is opened up and can bend and move more. I did this with a similar method for covering the corners of books with contact. This may sound odd, but it works! I cut down and then diagonally, folding the now flaps into the tunic. Now I had a little silly moment and forgot to fold the tunic inside out before folding the flaps back! So the bare sewing and left over flappy bits is hanging out. Oh well - that's what practice is for! Below is a quick diagram of red - the cutting lines, grey - the folding lines and the rest of the tunic. Once you fold it back,you expose some area. Make sure to sew this as neatly as possible because your work won't be nicely hidden on the inside of a seam! You can see the pink dots marking holes I intend to make and work thread through - adding some nice variation to the tunic piece.
 

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First prototype piccies! I think the hips down to leg can come in a little, as when the tunic is this short it doesn't effect mobility at all, plus it looks kinda silly to see it puff out when not needed.
tunic with regular pose.jpgtunic with t pose.jpgtunic with w pose.jpg
 
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I finished the 3D creation of the ring of erudite! This is a great ring for a mage, and looked like a very interesting thing to explore in Fusion 360, so here I am! If anyone is interested in a full recount of how I did it, I would be more than happy to tell you. It was quite simple (took less than an hour which is insane in the 3D modelling world), I made a profile sketch of a single band, doubled it to make a single double band and then revolved it 359.9 degrees. I then filleted the ends of the ring to round them back. After that I copy and pasted twice, pivoting the bands slightly to get the best alignment for the finger. I then made a profile sketch of the gem holder, then revolved it 360 degrees to create the plate. After that I found an old d20 file I made and cut half of it off. I used this as the gem. Below is my timeline. Note: i would have loved to fillet the ends of the bands back as much as the original, but Fusion 360 didn't agree with me. Still seeking out a work-around.
timeline.JPG
Here are the renderings:
roe render.JPGroe modelled.JPG
ring of erudite.JPGroe modelled final.JPGroe original.jpg
roe top.JPGroe front.JPGroe side.JPG
 
I I intend to make the final product in a semi-stretchy fabric, most likely a wool-blend as I wish to stick to traditional materials which someone in medieval age would make their tunic out of.
Ah yes, the famous wool blend of the 13th century! Haha this is so good though dude. Way better than mine, at least in terms of planning and neatness and templating and overall skill and everything else.

- - - Updated - - -

After putting on the tunic, I found it to be quite baggy on the waist but quite well fitting everywhere else. As a result, I brought the waist in a bit, careful not to take it in too much otherwise it will be too tight to get off over the chest. Keeping in mind the final product will be in a stretchier fabric - so I could technically take it in completely. However for the sake of experimentation and taking the tunic on and off constantly, I took it in a little - mainly to see the effect of my taking-in method. Extra note on taking in, I did take in the shoulder too - as it jutted upwards too much and I wanted it to gently round over the shoulder.
View attachment 841081
Btw, some of your links here are broken. Try editing the post and putting in the pics again?

- - - Updated - - -

First prototype piccies! I think the hips down to leg can come in a little, as when the tunic is this short it doesn't effect mobility at all, plus it looks kinda silly to see it puff out when not needed.
View attachment 841087View attachment 841088View attachment 841089
T POSE TO ESTABLISH DOMINANCE

- - - Updated - - -

A
I finished the 3D creation of the ring of erudite! This is a great ring for a mage, and looked like a very interesting thing to explore in Fusion 360, so here I am! If anyone is interested in a full recount of how I did it, I would be more than happy to tell you. It was quite simple (took less than an hour which is insane in the 3D modelling world), I made a profile sketch of a single band, doubled it to make a single double band and then revolved it 359.9 degrees. I then filleted the ends of the ring to round them back. After that I copy and pasted twice, pivoting the bands slightly to get the best alignment for the finger. I then made a profile sketch of the gem holder, then revolved it 360 degrees to create the plate. After that I found an old d20 file I made and cut half of it off. I used this as the gem. Below is my timeline. Note: i would have loved to fillet the ends of the bands back as much as the original, but Fusion 360 didn't agree with me. Still seeking out a work-around.
View attachment 841225
Here are the renderings:
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Daaang that looks incredible! Puts my amulet to shame haha.
 
My first ring test print was a success! I did a single band ring with filleted edges - as well as text on the inside and outside of the ring. I did this to experiment with writing on a flat surface then bending it in to make a ring with text. This is a very handy technique to have under your belt. It also gives me insight as to how far I have to extrude things to get them to be noticeable. It also gives me an idea of how precise the printer is and its limitations. As well as how the lines come up on a printed design. The photos below are: ring on index finger (a little tight but not too bad), the ring and other designs in the cage of doom (this is immersed in an acid bath to remove the white support material), the ring on the messy workbench, the ring on my middle finger (a bit looser, an optimal size of 18.2 mm diameter) and all the 3D printed designs on the bed (the other large blobs with holes are someone's project, the coin and talos amulet are halrhyrr's go check his out!).
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My first ring test print was a success! I did a single band ring with filleted edges - as well as text on the inside and outside of the ring. I did this to experiment with writing on a flat surface then bending it in to make a ring with text. This is a very handy technique to have under your belt. It also gives me insight as to how far I have to extrude things to get them to be noticeable. It also gives me an idea of how precise the printer is and its limitations. As well as how the lines come up on a printed design. The photos below are: ring on index finger (a little tight but not too bad), the ring and other designs in the cage of doom (this is immersed in an acid bath to remove the white support material), the ring on the messy workbench, the ring on my middle finger (a bit looser, an optimal size of 18.2 mm diameter) and all the 3D printed designs on the bed (the other large blobs with holes are someone's project, the coin and talos amulet are halrhyrr's go check his out!).
View attachment 841347View attachment 841344View attachment 841345
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Looking good :)

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The wrap that goes around the tunic looks simple, but actually took a lot of time to get right! Once I figured out how exactly to make the wrap base (which was tricky, but then I had a eureka moment and discovered it was all one piece of cloth disguised to look like two!). After this I of course drew it out onto the largest piece of cloth a had and got to cutting it out. I tried it on and immediately found an issue - I had made the arm hole way too big! So I sewed a piece of cloth over the hole and more tentatively cut away at this new hole, putting it on, checking the fit, before cutting out a little more. A hard lesson learned - always leave extra fabric to cut away later if needed rather than cut it away straight off and have to sew and patch it back up! So then, after lots of experimentation, wrapping, fiddling and tonnes of scribbling annotations all over the fabric - I had a template which I was satisfied with. The good thing about the wrap is it comes in template form - I simply lay the first one down on the new fabric and trace! Okay enough prattling on, here is the pic compared to the original drawing for reference:
Edit - I also cinched up the shoulder part a little to get it to round over the shoulder more. I also sewed over the back slope side by folding the material back in over itself to reduce its size and encourage it to hug the back.
the wrap.jpgtoga wrap design.jpg
 
The wrap that goes around the tunic looks simple, but actually took a lot of time to get right! Once I figured out how exactly to make the wrap base (which was tricky, but then I had a eureka moment and discovered it was all one piece of cloth disguised to look like two!). After this I of course drew it out onto the largest piece of cloth a had and got to cutting it out. I tried it on and immediately found an issue - I had made the arm hole way too big! So I sewed a piece of cloth over the hole and more tentatively cut away at this new hole, putting it on, checking the fit, before cutting out a little more. A hard lesson learned - always leave extra fabric to cut away later if needed rather than cut it away straight off and have to sew and patch it back up! So then, after lots of experimentation, wrapping, fiddling and tonnes of scribbling annotations all over the fabric - I had a template which I was satisfied with. The good thing about the wrap is it comes in template form - I simply lay the first one down on the new fabric and trace! Okay enough prattling on, here is the pic compared to the original drawing for reference:
View attachment 842144View attachment 842145
Looks great. Will you put on all the templated pieces for progress pics/testing the fit all together?

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk
 
The hood is done! It was sadly a result of productive procrastination, but a result is a result! I used the first template a found even after a solid half hour of research and watching videos (which helped me understand how templates fit together) - I guess it speaks to google's accuracy and relevance of results. Turns out it did have quite a lot of flop at the back which I in the end removed (despite liking the flop) because the Skyrim design is more fitted to the back of the head. The one change I haven't made which I intend to experiment with is the opening - as you can see on the character below the opening is more narrow than my design which is quite wide. I'm thinking of making a mini mock test hood just to see how changing the slant and length of the hood side of template influences the hood opening (and watching more videos).
The process:
1. First I cut out the circle for the lower part of the design which the hood attaches to. The design did not specify any measurement for the neck opening so I just did some quick maths based off the length of a loose circle around my neck - like that of a collar. The circumference of my "neck" measurement was 45 cm, and my rearranging the subject of the circumference of a circle formula I could get the radius of my neck! Who said sewing couldn't involve algebra?! The radius of 7.16 cm was actually in that golden zone of loose enough to get the collar over the head whilst still being a relatively small collar (of course this depends on your head size, my sister has a fat head so I'll have to readjust if she wants a hood). Now I have the small and large circle measurements (note - I had to bring it down to about 22 inches because my piece of fabric wasn't quite big enough). So I set about cutting it out. I used a circular pillow to help as a guide on roundness and getting the right angle on my circle from all sides. I cut this out of course and now have my base circular thing which sits on the shoulders.
2. The hood was relatively easy to cut out, I made sure to keep an eye keeping the same ratio as in the picture - I didn't bother trying to print out this guy's template to get the very exact ratios as eyeballing is good enough for tests. I had to cut this out twice of course, and started off with pinning and sewing up the back and top of the hood. After that flipped the shoulder base and hood inside out and pinned the tan-curvey neck side of the hood to it. I started by aligning the back to the back then working out from there placing a pin on the left of the back, then the right, then left, etc to force out kinks in the fabric. This is then flipped the other way out and sewn together. After that I found the hood way way way to floppy at the back and came back, flipped it inside out and took a good portion of the rear, (looking at the far right image) I basically cut from where the blue strip meets the top of the cloth in a gentle curve outwards and back down towards where the curve ends near the blue strip. This was guided by putting on the hood and marking with a pen the curve of the back of my head, and then cutting that curve out with a bit extra fabric along the edge and re-sewing. This worked a lot better as you can see in later images. I also folded the opening of the hood in a couple inches, maybe around 6 to 8 cm. This provided more stability to the front of the hood and helped it jut out more and give the edge strength and a nice curve. However, as stated earlier, I may have to take in the opening and make it narrower to make it accurate to the original design. I'll also fiddle with the shoulder part and how much I want on each side.
cowl pattern.jpgradius of neck opening.JPGtracing circle base.jpgtemplated hood.jpg
hood inspo shrouded.jpgstandard hood.jpghood in game.jpg
Before adjustment:
hood loose front.jpgold hood side.jpgold hood front.jpg
After adjustment:
new hood angle.jpgnew hood front.jpgnew hood side.jpg
 
The hood is done! It was sadly a result of productive procrastination, but a result is a result! I used the first template a found even after a solid half hour of research and watching videos (which helped me understand how templates fit together) - I guess it speaks to google's accuracy and relevance of results. Turns out it did have quite a lot of flop at the back which I in the end removed (despite liking the flop) because the Skyrim design is more fitted to the back of the head. The one change I haven't made which I intend to experiment with is the opening - as you can see on the character below the opening is more narrow than my design which is quite wide. I'm thinking of making a mini mock test hood just to see how changing the slant and length of the hood side of template influences the hood opening (and watching more videos).
The process:
1. First I cut out the circle for the lower part of the design which the hood attaches to. The design did not specify any measurement for the neck opening so I just did some quick maths based off the length of a loose circle around my neck - like that of a collar. The circumference of my "neck" measurement was 45 cm, and my rearranging the subject of the circumference of a circle formula I could get the radius of my neck! Who said sewing couldn't involve algebra?! The radius of 7.16 cm was actually in that golden zone of loose enough to get the collar over the head whilst still being a relatively small collar (of course this depends on your head size, my sister has a fat head so I'll have to readjust if she wants a hood). Now I have the small and large circle measurements (note - I had to bring it down to about 22 inches because my piece of fabric wasn't quite big enough). So I set about cutting it out. I used a circular pillow to help as a guide on roundness and getting the right angle on my circle from all sides. I cut this out of course and now have my base circular thing which sits on the shoulders.
2. The hood was relatively easy to cut out, I made sure to keep an eye keeping the same ratio as in the picture - I didn't bother trying to print out this guy's template to get the very exact ratios as eyeballing is good enough for tests. I had to cut this out twice of course, and started off with pinning and sewing up the back and top of the hood. After that flipped the shoulder base and hood inside out and pinned the tan-curvey neck side of the hood to it. I started by aligning the back to the back then working out from there placing a pin on the left of the back, then the right, then left, etc to force out kinks in the fabric. This is then flipped the other way out and sewn together. After that I found the hood way way way to floppy at the back and came back, flipped it inside out and took a good portion of the rear, (looking at the far right image) I basically cut from where the blue strip meets the top of the cloth in a gentle curve outwards and back down towards where the curve ends near the blue strip. This was guided by putting on the hood and marking with a pen the curve of the back of my head, and then cutting that curve out with a bit extra fabric along the edge and re-sewing. This worked a lot better as you can see in later images. I also folded the opening of the hood in a couple inches, maybe around 6 to 8 cm. This provided more stability to the front of the hood and helped it jut out more and give the edge strength and a nice curve. However, as stated earlier, I may have to take in the opening and make it narrower to make it accurate to the original design. I'll also fiddle with the shoulder part and how much I want on each side.
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Before adjustment:
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After adjustment:
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Oh you nerd, you actually included the maths? Hahaha very nice. Love the perspective you included on the face.
 
I feel like I've word dumped a bit so I'll keep this short and sharp - I've also completed the savos amulet over the weekend and gathered inspiration from seeing Macbeth on the weekend. The costumes were incredible, it was really cool to see medieval style clothes in real life and see how it behaves in movement. One thing I gathered which will apply directly is the fitting (or lack of there of) of the tunics. Even on the women it was left in a simple rectangle shape and cinched in with a stylish belt. I think this will be something I will incorporate into the tunic, which also saves me time on making it fitted. I always figured you'd make it fitted to save fabric, but every design choice was obviously very calculated in the Macbeth play and the designers pride themselves on historic accuracy for this specific rendition. Here's a pick of the famous couple from the specific rendition i saw, however I will place it below the pictures of the savos amulet because it has graphic depictions of blood - but it was the only good pic I could find demonstrating my point. So WARNING: Macbeth's hands are positively covered in blood, so I suggest not going any further if you're sensitive.
Edit: I've noticed the tunic actually flares out at the bottom of all of their tunics - so it would be a rectangle with a flare at the base.
savos amulet render.JPGsavos amulet model.JPGsavos amulet sketch.JPG
savos amulet technical.JPGclose up savos amulet.JPG
macbeth.jpgmacbeth 2.jpg
 
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