This forum has been archived. Please visit the new forum at https://community.narniaweb.com/

Costume/Prop Resources and Tutorials

Dressing up Narnia-style!

Moderator: Meltintalle

Costume/Prop Resources and Tutorials

Postby Gymfan15 » Sep 02, 2009 1:34 pm

Here's some popular resources and tutorials relating to general costume/prop making.

If your content is listed below and you would like it removed, please PM Gymfan15 or Meltintalle and we will take care of that for you. :)

All content copyright the original posters!

Susan's Horn:
Image

Centaur:
Lady Eowyn wrote:Well, I wrote up a bit of material, but I had to jump up from the computer and recklessly saved it - but into a text file, so I retained all the nice words and lost my nice links. again.

However, after that I realized that you asked where to find a centaur costume, not make one. Well, my answer is, to the best of my knowledge, you're not going to find one... It seems that those daring enough to make a centaur costume aren't selling - and I certainly haven't seen any commercially developed patterns.

If you'd rather look into some costuming work, you can take a look at what I've found below. However, it would be some pret-ty serious costuming if you want to be a centaur and not look absurd. (unless you want to find a faithful friend to pay off to be the back of the centaur? )

A cheaper and faster way (especially since you're shooting for halloween) is talked about here, just scroll down to the second-from-last reply. I've included the relevant part below. This person started this for a child two years ago, I don't know if it was ever finished.

Marie wrote:Wow, I thought I was the only one crazy enough to try making this costume. I found a few sites that give basics on all types of animal costumes, but nothing for a horse. I'm currently making this costume. I have only ten days, but have already made the frame. I bought my supplies at home depot and Joann Fabrics. I personally don't think you need a pattern if you're creative enough. I bought: bendable metal (approx. 2in by 64in) with rivets (holes) all down the center (so bolting pieces on would be easy), nuts and bolts, small chicken wire 19 guage, 1 inch thick foam (Joann's) and brown short fur for the top part of the body and thicker brown fur for the waist and lower legs. I'm using a synthetic ponytail from a wig store to give the tail a realiztic look. Right now I have the frame done. I simply started by bening one long strip starting at the lower part of my back and bent it gently to form the top part of a horses back, all the way down to it's rear end. I then used two other metal strips and crossed them and bolted them just at the highest part where the thighs would be. Once you get a sturdy basic frame, you then form the chicken wire over it and secure it all together. I use metal wire and twist it with pliers. I then formed the legs and just attached them to each bar (leg). Then I fit the foam all around it and shape the horse. You can double it up and glue it in areas where certain leg muscles will be. If the foam you get is thicker, you can just shave areas off with a razor or electric knife, which is quite easy. Then simply take measurements of your form and copy to the fur. If you get long fake fur, it hides a lot mistakes. For the hooves, I used a very thick pleather from the fabric store and pounded snaps into each so they would fasten in the back. So far, it looks great. One additional idea is to make sure you use cotton leggins for under the costume. You would build up the leggins by attaching the foam right to the leggins. Make sure they're heavier so nothing irritates your legs. Right now I'm contemplating changing the legs out so they have joints and can somehow move. Very difficult and I'm struggling with ideas on how to make it work. That's all the info I can offer you right now. If anyone else out there has any pointers or suggestions, I'd sure love to hear about it. It's obvious people on this site are into making their OWN costumes. This is great. Good luck.

Original source

You're going to want structure and padding and fur; you'll want to research getting the shape of digigrade legs for the back legs. There's a good page on digigrade legs here. Of course, that's not going to do much good for the back legs, as they wouldn't be your own, and can be structured without having to worry about bending your own joints. That links to this tutorial for front hooves, which is very good.

What would be definitely tough is how you will be... mobile! A structure on wheels? Light enough to move around? A structure on wheels that automatically moves the back legs forward and backward when you move? That's getting a little complex, but it's been thought of for those with time on their hands. Here's a few ideas for a centaur costume sturdy enough for a passenger.


Work in progress...
User avatar
Gymfan15
Moderator Emeritus
Giver of Prestigious NarniaWeb Taglines™
 
Posts: 8314
Joined: Jun 28, 2005
Location: The heart and mind of God
Gender: Female

Re: Costume/Prop Resources and Tutorials

Postby Meltintalle » Sep 17, 2009 7:59 am

Lucy's Cordial Bottle Engraving
Narniabuff wrote:
Umm step by step instructions will be hard but I will attempt it.

You will need a small glue gun and glue gun wax. I got my wax off of ebay but I am sure other places sell it. A small sheet of glass(steal one from a household frame ;) ), a drawing or template of the carving(use your artist skills here or get an artistic friend) and a metal tip pen.

Image
1. Let the wax heat up, give it a while. It needs to be really hot!
2. Place the drawing under the glass, spray glass with pam
3. When wax is dripping out of the gun, out line the center section first, then fill in useing a generous about of wax. (center is everything inside the wreath of leaves)
4. Let that cool for just a moment while the gun heats up more wax.
5. Fill in the "wreath of leaves" using lots of wax, with a little extra to trim off bumps
6. Let it cool until it is warm but not cold, at this point you will have to decide which side is better. Sometimes the top is flatter, sometimes the bottom. If all goes well you should have only a small grove separating the two sections.
7. Take your metal tip pen and "draw" the design using pressure to create a carved efect. It does help if you also put some pam on the pen and wipe it from time to time. If drawing is not your strong point. Try putting the template on top of the wax and use light pressure with a pencil(slightly dull) to create a pattern to follow.

Image
This is before I trimmed the edges so they are a bit sloppy. Now I begin my quest for the perfect bottle. So far the closest I've gotten is the right shape but doesn't have a round bottom.

Well there you go, good luck!

Q&A with Narniabuff
Meltintalle:I'm probably just being really dense here, but is a metal-tip pen also known as a ball-point pen?
Narniabuff:Yes but I used a micro or really fine tipped pen. It is a ball point pen but it's not your average office pen. You could try a regular pen but I think the micro carves better.

RoseRed:when you say 'out line' do you mean draw the shape of the outside on the glass? And what do you mean by fill in? How thick would you saw that you put the wax on there?How are you going to fix the wax on your bottle?
Narniabuff:RoseRed, hopefully I can clarify a bit, some things are hard to explain.
Outline-use the wax to outline the shape then fill in the rest with more wax. I didn't use an exact amount but when you skweeze out the wax on the glass it is about 1/8 of an inch then it will "deflate" after it cools completely. I plan to use hot glue or maybe super glue but we will see what works. I will let you know. I hope that helps.
Image
User avatar
Meltintalle
Moderator
Ra-pun-z-mel
 
Posts: 7311
Joined: Oct 06, 2005
Location: Scanning your bookcases

Re: Costume/Prop Resources and Tutorials

Postby Adeona » Nov 26, 2010 11:38 pm

I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I couldn't find a better place (Mods feel free to move this post or ask me to!).

I was surfing the web, looking at pictures of Lucy from VDT, when I found this blog entry with pictures of the English costumes for Ed, Lucy, and Eustace, from a show somewhere. I hadn't seen these posted anywhere, and they are relatively detailed, so I thought I'd share them:
Hollywood Movie Costumes and Props blog post
RL Sibs: Aviator, Lizzle, Narniancricket, DancingPrincesses, Andriel
User avatar
Adeona
NarniaWeb Guru
Thursday's Wayfaring Child
 
Posts: 1692
Joined: Jun 26, 2009
Location: Hidden in Silence
Gender: Female

Re: Costume/Prop Resources and Tutorials

Postby imzadi40 » Nov 23, 2011 11:14 pm

For anyone who wants to buy a Narnian/Medieval-looking dress for a costume, I found mine on Ebay. It looks like this...
Image

All I did was put in the search words 'LOTR costume', and I got several kinds of the dress, made by Artemisia Dance Designs. I found some in red, green and gold, and purple, to name a few. I chose the blue one. But then I realized I needed a cape, so I searched for one, and Artemisia Dance Designs also had a matching color cloak as well.

But does anyone know where I can find some shoes that would be 'Narnian'-looking? Any help is greatly appreciated!
imzadi40
NarniaWeb Newbie
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Nov 17, 2011
Gender: Female


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests