Hobbit Costuming for Desolation of Smaug Premiere in Manila

All the hard work crafting the Hobbit-themed costumes come down to this: the Manila premiere screenings (Dec 9 & 10, 2013) of The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug. I present the attires and costume elements that passed through my production worktables. [Click on the images for higher resolution.]

Lord Elrond's full costume worn by my son, Dante.

These next photos were taken at the advance screening for the New Zealand Embassy in Manila.

Here are the costumes that incorporate my contributions: Thorin's scalemail armor, belt buckle, and toecaps; Fili's leather vest; and Kili's accent (collar/vambrace/baldric) scales.

My bragging rights:

The Hobbit Costume Projects: Fili Vest

I volunteered to build the Fili vest for Nina, a friend who's costuming this Hobbit dwarf, mainly because I wanted to make the scales trim using polymer clay. Much like what I did for the Thorin scalemail shirt for Oneal.

Looking at the official Fili image, I figured I’d have to make roughly 150 scales. I estimated I would need 7-10 pieces of 2-oz brown/copper/beige polymer clay bricks. I also figured I’d require about a yard of 54-inch wide material, preferably faux leather or costume suede. I found everything I needed at a crafts and fabric store and bought them with discount coupons.

I worked on the scales first. I had made a positive and a negative mold of the four different forms, so it was just a matter of pulling 150 positives. Bake, then paint, and done!




It was my first time to sew a vest, and my first time to work with suede (definitely more manageable than marine vinyl). So, I was learning as I went along. More like winging it.

Guided by the measurements Nina sent me, I cut a paper pattern. I thought I had it right but after I had cut the fabric, I realized I could’ve done a Dolman sleeve instead of a regular sleeve. That would have been easier to sew, and would’ve looked closer to the Fili original. But, with no extra material to revise my design, I went ahead with what I had already cut.




It was nice working with the costume suede because it doesn’t fray (didn't have to do any serging). And the fabric surface, while feeling a bit plastic-y, does not get tacky under the sewing machine’s pressure foot. I just had to guide the material so that it wouldn’t swerve too much.

 

As soon as I finished sewing, I laid out the scales to check if I had enough. It turned out that I had made too many because I had counted the scales on the real Fili, without thinking that Nina’s measurements are certainly much smaller.




Using super glue, I attached all the scales very carefully. No major mishaps aside from the three times that I tore off a piece of finger skin that had bonded with a clay scale.

Fili Vest with natural light.

Fili Vest with camera flash.

Overall, it was an easy project – a couple hours for measuring and cutting the pattern and material, maybe three to four hours sewing the vest, and an hour gluing the scales. Preparing the 150 clay scales -- conditioning, shaping, baking, and painting -- probably took the longest in terms of manhours. But you really don’t bother counting the hours when you’re having fun!

The best part of all: bragging rights!

Photo taken at the premier of Desolation of Smaug in Manila, December 2013 with Nina (Fili), Dante (Lord Elrond) and Oneal (Thorin Oakenshield).