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: Thorin Oakenshield Boot Caps

Another Thorin Oakenshield costume accessory I determined I could also do was his boot caps. Fortunately, there’s a good image of them available online.

Because I would again be making these accessories for Oneal, who’s several thousand miles away, I asked him to take comprehensive measurements of his boots to where the caps would attach. He was quick to illustrate his numbers.

Based on Oneal’s measurements, I came up with a paper pattern of what I figured would be the best way to execute the angular forms of the toe tips. There would be a two-section top panel, and a four-section side-to-side panel with tabs to glue the top panel on.

The caps would be made out of a type of cardboard called chipboard – the kind used as backing for sketch pads. I’ll cut the dwarven designs from craft foam, glue them onto the chipboard, and paint the caps to look just like in the movie. It was relatively straightforward.

I added a tiny strip of foam along the outer edges and gave the chipboard a base paint of light brown. Then I superglued the cutouts in place.

This is how the caps looked on my husband’s biker boots (two sizes bigger than Oneal’s) before the painting phase.

I used a combination of gold, silver, bronze, and black acrylic paints to give the caps the semi-metallic weathered look.

Not bad. I’m a little uncomfortable though, at how the caps look a little too shiny compared to the movie version. I told Oneal to maybe add another layer of matte brown and some more weathering (maybe beat them up some) to make them not look like they came from Lord Elrond.

The Hobbit: Thorin Oakenshield Belt Buckle

It only made sense that after building Thorin’s armor vest for Oneal, as well as the scales that decorated his massive belt, I should also make the belt buckle. It shouldn’t be difficult. Or so I thought.

Because I used polymer clay in building the scale mail, I decided to also use clay in building the buckle. Just make it look like metal, just like the scales.

So, I asked Oneal (from halfway across the planet), to give me the width of his belt, which would be the basis for my design dimensions for the buckle. And this is what I came up with.

Following the design, I formed and cut my metallic silver clay. It was looking good but I had a tough time keeping the clay’s sharp corners. Every time I add something, my fingers nudge what’s already in place and I have to go back and do damage control.

Then I tried to make the clay surface look rough by texturing with a crochet doily. It worked to some extent.

I guess I was too excited to put the whole thing together, including the jewels, that it was only after I had baked the clay that I noticed that the entire thing was off-kilter. The angles were wrong, the depths were wrong, everything was wrong! And crooked! And it was just horrendous! It looked like an Autobot emblem that melted under the sun. I junked it.

Not to be discouraged, I thought of using a different medium. The clay was just too malleable. I needed a medium that keeps its shape. Cork!

I adjusted the design a little bit, incorporated the backing, and used a 45-degree cutter (tool for picture frame matting) to make the sharp-edged shapes in the center of the buckle. It took a bit of practice (and a lot of cork) to perfect the triangular-edge forms.

Next, the jewels. I didn’t like how the clay ones came out -- even after I tried to make them shine with a couple of coats of Mod Podge.

It was time to employ my resin casting skills! I cut the jewel shapes on hard (black) foam, then I pressed each one on a silicone mold. When the mold cured, I poured some resin, which I tried to color with blue food color. The food color didn’t blend well with the resin because there are tiny blue spots in the cast, but it turned blue enough to pass for Thorin's buckle's precious jewels (you won’t see the spots unless you look really close).

My next challenge was to design a way for Oneal to attach the buckle to the belt that he has out there, twelve time zones away. I thought of suggesting superglue (he won’t really have to remove the buckle from the belt, right?). But what if he wants to change the buckle to one that says “Elvis”? So I thought of just screwing an aluminum sheet plate to the back of the cork buckle, with tabs that he can bend and fold around his belt for a perfect fit. (Note that I had to insert/glue onto the cork a set of dowels to screw the plate on.)

Adding a few shades of metallic silver acrylic paint made the cork look very close to the movie version Thorin buckle. Glue the jewels on and… done! Now doesn't that look so much better than my clay *fail* attempt? But hey, you never know until you try.

Yes, I know, it's still not an exact match to the movie version, but I bet if I try a third time, I'll get it just right! 

The Hobbit: Lord Elrond Costume: Summary

It took me 6.5 months to build the Lord Elrond costume from scratch. I worked on the project sporadically though, mainly because I had other things to do, but sometimes because I was stumped. While I tried hard to get the whole project organized and planned out, there were times when I would suddenly realize that something I initially thought would work wouldn’t. At that point, I would do something totally different (like Fili's vest) until a lightbulb of an idea would come up.

Thankfully, I managed to make it all come together. On the whole, I’m quite happy with how the costume turned out.

This page serves as the jumpoff point for the build pages of the various elements of my Lord Elrond Costume. May you all be inspired.

Costume Preparations

Tunic

Armor Vest

Vambrace

Pauldron

Hip Armor

Chest Armor

Cape
Boot Armor

Costume Completion

Circlet

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug Premiere Screening Dec 9, 2013

The Hobbit: Lord Elrond Costume: Final

The final touches were attaching the stud covers to all the bare studs on the vambrace and boots, spraying acrylic sealer to all the surfaces covered by Mod Podge to seal in the tackiness of the gloss finish.

Here’s the “Wearing Sequence” panel I created to show how to wear the armor pieces in order.

And here’s a shot of my favorite McDonald’s Minion, Dave, who says, “Ba-nah-naaah”. 

My showcase poster:

… and my outdoor shot to show the natural color of the armor. Also shows how hot I was, falling out of bed and into my husband’s boots at 11 am -- I mean, literally hot -- it was 95F in the shade that August morning.

[Go back to Lord Elrond Costume Summary]

The Hobbit: Lord Elrond Costume: Boot Armor

The boot armor that I made is actually a cheat. On the stock photo of Elrond, I couldn’t tell if the armor was actually overlapped bands with silver edgings. For my purpose, I decided to just use a flat piece of vinyl, backed with heat-curved foam, and accented with silver polymer clay crisscrossed stripes. Then I used loops (same system as the back of the vest), to wrap the “armor” (more like a shield) onto the boot.

So that’s what I did.

I punched holes where I would attach the loops for the back laces, brushed on some Mod Podge, and attached Velcro to the bottom tabs to anchor the armor to the sole of the boot. Easy as pie.

[Go back to Lord Elrond Costume Summary]