LOTR Elf
Ok here’s the deal. Lord of the Rings is awesome, and I’ve always wanted to be an elf, but I’m really more the stature of a hobbit…
Since I can’t quite justify, at least in my current mental state, me cosplaying one of the existing elves in the Lord of the Rings universe, I just made up my own. If she’s fictional, who cares if I’m not tall enough?
So here ya go:
I named her Tirnel and she’s a moon warrior elf ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What can I say, I’m weird!
I’m in love with my design. After taking her around San Diego Comic Con 2019 I can say two things: Richard Taylor said my costume was awesome, and I can say my costume still needs a lot of work. Definitely a Mulligan project.
Here’s the abbreviated process:
Lesson learned about making shoes: use good glue, or sew the uppers onto the soles. I was in a rush (a big problem with this whole make, to be honest) and I skimped. Bad idea when wandering around a massive convention center all day. The basic principle, however, is this:
Put on the shoe that you are covering (or just the sole, if that’s how you’re working)
Wrap your leg and the shoe/sole in cling film
Cover aforesaid shoe/sole/cling film in masking or duct tape
Draw lines
Cut on lines, which will create your patterns
Quick note about creating the patterns though, especially if you’ve never drafted any clothing patterns before: these pieces will need to lay flat when you’ve finished. The whole concept with pattern drafting is that you are taking a flat object (fabric, leather…) and forming it around a 3D object (you). The shape comes from how the seams are sewn together. So you have to start with flat pieces that then get sewn together to become 3D.
The tunic turned out great. My only issue with this was I think the waistline could have come down further. That would have helped keep my stomach covered :)
Note the metal aglets; I’m very proud of these.
Dye samples for the leggings
Jury is out on the leggings. I think they looked perfect, but functionally they were terrible. The fabric is definitely not a bottoms fabric - by the end of the day they were so stretched out, it was painful!
The texture and color turned out perfect, but I will need to replace these with something more suited for pants.
Armor mock-ups, leather breastplate, and the whole thing put together. I’m really happy with the overall look, but again, it lacked some practicality. I definitely need some real leather hardware, and not the cheap stuff you get on Amazon (sorry, I love you, Amazon). I also need to remake the pauldrons and arm braces in real, heavy-gauge leather. At the time, I was going for cheap and quick. This will be a really fun Mulligan.
This is definitely the coolest I’ve ever felt - Katniss-style bad ass. You can tell in my expression that I feel awesome, but I’m trying to play it cool.
Most of this worked really well, although the quiver size and arrow size didn’t match up. Having gone out with my own “real” quiver since, I think the problem was mostly that the quiver opening was too big. So that at least is an easy fix.
First time in prosthetics! And apparently I decided that the best time to take a pic was when I was in the middle of powdering my make up. Oh well.
And the whole thing together at the Con:
Clearly I need to learn how to pose.
And… is it just me, or does this look better without the wig?
