Casquivana
Ring Wraith
I'm a member of a swordfighting group and we did a show in the
theater for the opening of Two Towers last year. I had to borrow a
costume, if you can believe it. So when I heard we had the chance to do
more shows for Return of the King, I decided to make my own. This has
got to be the most finicky costume to wear, especially trying to climb
stairs - which I discovered at the last minute I had to do during the
show.
I toyed around with a few methods of making myself taller (a 5'
8" Nazgul just doesn't seem right to me), mostly variations on platform
boots. I decided against that for several reasons - I wanted to be able to
wear sabatons, I would have to wear a visible black mask, and most
importantly I can't walk in platform boots.
So I took a page from
http://www.kropserkel.com and made myself false padded shoulders and a
wire frame hood that straps to the top of my head - adds about a foot of
completely empty hood, which seemed to unnerve people who knew where my face
really was when they tried to talk to me.
The robes are pretty simple, three layers of different kinds of
unidentified bargain-wall stuff. I think the total was about 26m of fabric,
and the most expensive was $5/m CDN. I put a bit of black trim on, because
these guys were kings once, after all. Most of the pattern shapes are
vaguely rectangles, gathered at the shoulders, and the sleeves were from a
costume pattern. The whole thing was supersized, though, since it had to fit
over the false shoulders and all. The hood probably took longer than all the
robes combined - once I had the wire frame done I had to cover it inside and
out with black felt so you couldn't see the wire from the inside or the
shape of the wire from the outside. With all the stitching on that thing, it
looks like the Wraith had brain surgery. The outer draping part of the hood
is just one piece of fabric, 3m long, stitched along the front edge of the
hood frame and the rest is just left hanging and worn like a shawl over the
shoulders. It usually ended up hanging in front of my face, but this piece
was sheer enough that I could still see fine, even in dim theatre light.
These robes were incredibly fast and easy to make - they don't have to
fit perfectly, they don't need to be hemmed anywhere, no fancy embroidery or
fasteners, seams don't need to be finished on the inside ... great beginner
project. The fun part though was weathering them - I took them out to the
garage and took an axe to the bottom edge, slashed them with scissors, tore
them with my hands, put them through the dryer and finally took them down to
the spare bathtub and spent about half an hour splashing mud. The photos are
before the mud.
The gauntlets and sabatons are rented from Valentine Armouries in
Calgary,
www.varmouries.com. Someday I'd like to make my own though, ones that
are less shiny and with more pointy bits. And after seeing Return of the
King, want the Witch-King's helmet and spaulders too!
The best part of this costume was people's reactions ... and the fact
that they couldn't see me. I'm usually on the shy and quiet side but I had a
wonderful time harassing the people who were waiting in line to see the
opening midnight show and I posed for a couple pictures. I scared one kid
half to death while I was waiting outside for our show to start ... the poor
little guy thought I was a statue and was poking at my gauntlets when I went
and moved. I had a few people comment on the voice too ... I can't do the
Wraith screech, and the last thing they said they expected to hear from
inside a costume like that was a girl's voice. I love being unpredictable!
Also, there's great potential to use this for other costumes ... I'd love
to do a scythe fight as Death!
