Mars, Washington, USA
Dead Marsh Elves
Ringcon '04 was on Halloween weekend and my sister and I wanted to do
something scary and hopefully different. We hadn't seen anyone do Dead Marsh
elves yet so that seemed like the thing, but the armor is expensive and time
consuming to produce, especially if you're only going to ruin it so it looks
like it's been underwater for centuries.
Instead of trying to build the stuff for real, then age it, we
"cartooned" it by using four inch spool ribbon attached to vests made for
the purpose using hot glue and hand sewing. The chain mail is a loose-weave
knit fabric in silver metal on black, turned back side out so the black
thread shows slightly more than the metallic. Goopy gel in the hair and
woven chunks of green raffia for seaweed pretty much took care of the hair
and the makeup is full white stage paint with eyes done in black on the
eyelids, so when we closed our eyes it looked like the zombie eyes seen in
the film (a cheap cheat instead of extremely expensive and vision-ruining
white contact lenses.) We got a great response at the ball--no one wanted to
talk to us at first and when we shut our eyes for photos, there was always
that rewarding "ewwww!". (Royd Tolkein had his friend take a shot of us with
him. Wish I could get a copy of that!)
Since we went with two friends dressed as nazgul with face-less masks and
the works, we were a nice creepy spot: we were standing one elf and one
nazgul on either side of the main aisle out and a lady refused to go between
us. Highest accolade!
