Adventures in armor making

Ten years ago The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King came out in theaters.  I already had a Ringwraith costume, thanks in large part to my mother's sewing skills.  I added a child's vampire cape that I'd removed the collar from, and sewn a couple strips of black fabric to the front of, to act as the cowl.  The armor I made for it was from craft foam, and served its purpose for a few years.  But I really wanted the helm that the Morgul Lord, Witch King of Angmar, wore.  That thing's just wicked!

My first helm was made from craft foam.  And...it turned out decently enough that people knew what I was, but it didn't survive moving a few times, or my over-enthusiasm when I discovered spray paint that has the look of hammered metal.  Spray paint and craft foam do not like each other.  Stiff is ok.  Cracking, not so much.  So the poor helm languished, crumpled and forlorn, in a corner of my bedroom. (No, no pictures exist of this sad attempt.)

Years passed.  And I kept trying to work out a new helm, using soda box cardboard, since that's lightweight and flexible.  But not matter what I did, I just couldn't get it to look right.

Tissue box and soda box cardboard - UGH!

What....in the world??

So I put the project away for a while (meaning I threw out those hideous...things) until one day I stumbled across a really cool blog for paper mache, and it suddenly dawned on me how to make my helm!

But how to start?  Well, logically, the face. Ok...so...what do I have that can give me that shape?  Ah-ha!  Plastic eye mask!

Witch King...or demented unicorn?

The center spire was always a stumbling block.  The first one I made, in craft foam, was a cone that I stitched up the back.  This one is a cone...from the side of a paper grocery bag.  Where the bag folds is the part that's on the forehead of the mask.  The crown is actually the two handles, unfolded and taped to the sides of the mask and sized to fit my head.  Except...

I'm a bit on the small side, at least compared to the Wraiths.  So I needed a little more height.  Before I'd started working on the helm this time, I had taken a ball cap that I didn't like and cut half the bill off.  I coated the entire thing with fabric stiffener, and once it was dried I put on my invisible hood and fit the cap on over that.  Not only does this give me a bit of height, but the way the helm sits allows me to look out through the mouth opening, and it's held out away from the cap by what's left of the bill so anyone looking into the eyes sees only...an empty blackness.  Oooh!  Scary.

Then came the challenge of building the sides, or cheek guards, and the mouth guard.  Once more to the paper bag, and I was ready to go!  But wait.  What about the crown of spikes?  Well, I'd saved the spikes I'd made for the craft foam helm (from rolled index cards) and hot-glued them in place, using my Witch King action figure and several pictures of the helm for reference.  Once I had everything taped in place I set up the hood and cap on a Styrofoam head (which I had to rig a stand for) and started applying the paper mache, using newspaper strips and a flour-water paste.

Now we're getting somewhere!

Plastic bag to protect the hoods

After I did both sides of the helm, the center spire and the spikes, and everything was well dried, I took the helm off the form and applied paper mache to the inside, as well.  You can't quite see it in the pictures, but the cheek guards do have the "fin" shape that the actual helm has.  That was probably the easiest to accomplish - I simply creased the cheek guards where I needed to, which moved the mouth guards closer together, and held wonderfully while I applied the paper mache.  Paper grocery bags are awesome!

And instead of gluing black fabric to the ball cap like I'd originally planned, I remembered I'd saved the hood off a Halloween mask I bought on clearance at Goodwill last year, which works perfectly.  The invisible hood I wear over my own head has a black fabric that covers my entire face - I can see out, but no one can see in.  The other hood fits over the ball cap, although I am going to glue the edge of the hood to the bill to help keep it in place.  I actually can get this on by myself - invisible hood, then pull the ball cap/hood combination on over that, then slip into the helm.  But I gotta say, getting through doors is a bit of a challenge!  I have to remember to duck, or I whack that darn center spire on the door frame!

Once everything was fully dried I took it outside and sprayed it with primer, then sprayed it with a coat of one shade of hammered metal paint, then went over it with a darker shade of hammered metal paint.  And I was done!  Yay! 

Well, with the helm.  There's still the gauntlets, vambraces, pauldrons, greaves and sabatons to do.  (In layman's terms that gloves, arm, shoulder, shin and leg armor.)  I'm working on the gauntlets, but I recently purchased some plaster cloth, and I'm seriously considering using that for my future armor endeavors.  Once I get the hang of working with it, that is.  So to practice I started making a Green Man.  More on him in the next entry!

Oh, and in case anyone's wondering: The full-size replica of the Witch King's helm that was produced by United Cutlery is 30" x 23" x 21" and weighs a whopping 22 pounds!  By comparison, my helm is 26" from the top of the center spire to the tip of the cheek guard (The spire is 15"), 16" from tip to tip of the crown of spikes, and 9" back-to-front.