Sunday 16 September 2012

Projects Past; Part 7 (Nazgul/ Ring Wraith)

For Wellington Armageddon on 2010 I decided I wanted to make another costume to wear, besides my Jango Fett, and I settled on a Nazgul from Lord of the Rings, (also known as Ring Wraiths or Black Riders). I started out by doing research on the costume and getting as many screen shots as I possibly could. I found a bunch or really helpful sites when it came to the robes, but at the time decent reference pictures of the gauntlets were hard to find.
In the end I found a couple that were passable, so started making the gloves. The finger pieces were made from cardstock, coated in resin. Each piece was cut out individually, I needed about 60 parts for the gloves, but ended up making quite a few spares as I wasn't sure how well they would hold up.
They were temporarily attached to a piece of bamboo prior to being coated in resin in order to give them a bit of curvature.

The rest of the gauntlets were constructed from 2mm cardboard, which was then fiberglassed for strength.
It was all then given a based coat of silver, and weathered to look beaten and dirty.
Resulting in this




 For the robes, I needed to cheat slightly, the original costumes had about 50m of fabrics in them and about 7 or 8 layers, which was going to be far too expensive and impractical for me to do. I cut it down to 4 layers in the end, The inner robe, over cloak (with sleeves), sleeveless cloak, hood and shawl. For most of the layers a heavily modified dressing gown pattern was used, with several different fabrics.

The hood was a little more challenging, as it needed to hold it's own shape, and stick out past my face quite a way. In the end foam was used to create a semi rigid form the fabric could drape over like so
 A rust stripping attachment was used to rip the edges of the fabric ( I enlisted a friend to help with this part) and dirt was rubbed on it to make it look appropriately worn.

With the result being this



And I bought a movie replica sword to complete the costume




 For Wellington Armageddon the next year I decided that it would be beneficial to the costume I added some boot armour as I notice in a couple of photos my the boots I was wearing were a little bit visible.

They were made in much the same way as the rest of the armour, being made from cardboard, which was then fiberglassed for strength then smoothed with body filler and painted up.

12 comments:

  1. Do you mind me asking where you ordered these robes from and about how much they cost?

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    1. As I mentioned in the above post, I made the robes myself.

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    2. what kind of fabric did you acquire?

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  2. Can you give more detail on the head? Was the foam attached to a baseball cap? Did you sew (or otherwise connect it) to the fabric? Did you find it hard walking around due to lack of peripheral vision?

    I have a similar costume that's not a wraith but I want to get that type of head shape on it.
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/dex1138/8144940889

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  3. The foam was glued to the lining of the hood, so holds itself on without any other sort of attachment method like a strap under the chin or a cap. Here is a really quick MS paint image I made a long time ago to help explain it to someone else http://i448.photobucket.com/albums/qq208/TracynOrdo/Nazgul%20Progress%20Pics/Cowl.jpg.

    It can be hard to walk in as there is a bit of a tunnel vision effect that occurs, but it isn't as bad as I expected it to be. The biggest thing is because of the black cloth over my face it can be hard to see unless the area is well lit.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the reply! I don't suppose you've ever made any long fingered hands/gloves? I want to make something better than what I have as shown in my previous comment but have zero clue about making stuff.

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  4. Awesome work!!! I'm working on ringwraith costume for my 7 year old. How much fiberglass resin did the project take, for both gloves and the shoe covers? Do you have a brand you recommend? Thanks so much!

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  5. Sorry, can't remember exactly how much resin I used, but 0.5kg should be more than enough. As far as brand goes, it's relatively unimportant as most polyester fiberglassing resins are more or less the same, so don't worry about buying for the brand. Just make sure you don't get it mixed up with polyester gelcoat or flowcoat resins.

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  6. omg fucking incredible this costume is goals :)))

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  7. Is there a site that you found the robe pattern on?

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  8. Hi,

    Can we rent this costume? we are doing a documentary and need a death costume- www.briansongs.org

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  9. Your pictures have disappeared. Is there another place where I can see them?

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