Aragorn Ranger costume WIP

That would be great!

I just gave up on buckles and bought d-rings today...maybe i should reconsider.

I still need to stitch the rest of the straps and darken them. They are a little bit loose but I don't have the padding for them. We will see if they need adjusted after I have padding.

I didn't make mine using leather at first. I made them using the JediElfQueen foamie tutorial (http://www.jedielfqueen.com/lotr/costumes/Boromir/vambraces/vambraces.htm) which is a really great method of recreating the leather tooling without actually learning to tool leather. :lol

My first attempts were pretty crude. Foamies for the tooling top part and upholstery vinyl for the back. The straps are vinyl and the buckle are off an old backpack I bought at an army surplus store.





After really looking at screengrabs from the movie and the kropserkel set I decided I wanted to remake mine more accurate but still try to avoid tooling leather or paying the $300 price tag for the KS.

I made some drawings, template out of paper, and then created some templates in Adobe Illustrator. Here's a mockup of the templates put together:



I feel it's a pretty accurate shape. If anyone wants to download them there's a zip of the AI files here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2354750/Aragorn_Bracer_templates.zip

Eventually I went through like 3 prototypes before I made my final set. The tooled top was still made out of foamies but I perfected a better wash for the top that didn't turn out so shiny. The bottom layer was made out of black upholstery vinyl. I attempted to recreate the frenched edge on the kropserkel set by adding a layer of cheap suede underneath the foam that curled over and was stitched down. Giving the raised edge seen in the kropserkel bracers. Of course now, years later, I know that they did a frenched edge and now know how to actually do that. But I didn't then. The suede and foam was glued and saddle stitched to the bottom vinyl layer using waxed thread and a saddle needle from Tandy. The straps were made with excess suede that had a lot of gum tragacanth added and burnished smooth with a spoon back. Those were stitched to the bracers and the buckles using waxed thread.

The under bracers were cut using the same templates, although enlarged slightly. They are two layers of cognac upholstery vinyl hand stitched in a diamond pattern to give the quilting. Then an strip of the same material was added to finish the edges. Grommets and leather cord lace them up.

Sadly I think I may have lost all record of those final versions to a hard drive crash. But here's a pic of the costume about 3/4 done, you can kinda see the bracers:



The full costume is a duster from Museum Replicas Ltd, red shirt from Twin Roses Designs, a crappy fake suede costume jerkin with added braded leather ties, MRL Kingly Belt, black tights, costume boots, my braces, costume Ring of Barahir, Leaf of Lothlorien and Evenstar pendant, and a Fellowship cloak from eBay. Oh and that monstrosity that is Anduril.

Eventually I did way more work on the duster, heavy weathering with sand paper, sander, wire brush, dirt, fuller's earth, and shoe polish. I got some boots from Caboots that weren't all that great but I weathered the crap out of them. I added the Elven knife and the Anduril scabbard, though you can't really walk around with that sword sheathed. I think I eventually got the Strider sword when all the UC stuff was dirt cheap a few years back.

I'll look through some backup discs at home and maybe I can find the pics of the finished bracers. I'd really like to find them again.

Those are incredible! The whole ensemble looks awesome. I think im going to tackle the bracer padding and jerkin next. I need more leather.

Feezle-Nuts said:

Those are incredible! The whole ensemble looks awesome. I think im going to tackle the bracer padding and jerkin next. I need more leather.

Click to expand...

Thanks. In the end I spent so much doing the prototypes that I probably could have just bought the kropserkel or heavy leather bracers.

Gotta dirty them up and break them in but they are done for now.

Nice dude! Those turned out nice. I looked through all my backups at home and no dice on the bracer pics. But you don't really need em anymore anyway.

You dont happen to have pics of the padding construction do you?

Yeah, I can give you an idea of how I put them together. Here's something I whipped up in Illustrator to show the basic construction. It's not to scale or perfect, so use it as a guide only. I think the shape I ended up using was similar to that but I don't remember exactly. I may have curved the corners and I can't remember 100% if the back "pyramid" was curved or straight. I'd recommend cutting out the shape from like paper or scrap material first. Try it out on your arm and under the bracers and make sure the shape works before cutting the leather.



The basic shape is two layers, stitched together with the diamond pattern to give it the quilting. The rolled edge was a thin strip, maybe a half inch, of material around the edges and stitched down. So, a 1/4" showing on each side? If that makes sense. Grommets on the edge and laced up with leather cord.

Ask if you've got any questions or my explanation sucks.

I have some thick (rubber backed?) vinyl that Im going to attempt this with. Im wondering if my sewing machine can handle 2 layers. 4 layers im pretty sure it wont.

I did it with some really thin vinyl. I hand stitched mine though since I didn't own a sewing machine. Good luck.

I would guess you'd want to pick up a leather needle if you're going through multiple layers of vinyl...that's a complete guess on my part, but at the very least buying a pack of needles before you start would be a good thing ;-)

I have leather needles from when i was sewing my Will Turner waistcoat. I guess there is only one way to find out.

I think im eventually going to make my own boots too. I saw a pair on alleycatscratch that a guy made by taking a set of hiking boots, cutting off all but two inches above the sole and stitching the boots out of upholstery. They looked awesome! I'll make mine out of real leather, but it gave me inspiration.

Trimming and stitching tomorrow.

looking great!

Just bought 40 feet of cow hide. Going to start tackling the jerkin when it gets here.

Very nice buildup. I'm really enjoying everything!

Kropserkel's bracers are a great construction reference, but the D-rings on the straps are not accurate buckles!

Here's my Aragorn from a few years back:

Bought cloak fabric today. I'm having a bit of buyers remorse. This fabric is sage green polyester. I know it is supposed to be grey wool, but I couldn't find anything close. I like the weight and texture of this fabric, I just wish it wasn't green. I was going to dye it, but I saw it is 100% polyester.

What do you guys think? Does it look the part? Is there a way to darken it and make it a bit more grey? Should I just return it and keep looking? I'm up in the air.