fotoblitz



Easterling Cosplay



Soldiers of Rhun



Hail, Sauron, Lord of the ring





Not many villains in Lord of the Rings got to wear eyeliner, so the Easterlings definitely stood out to me! I have loved their armour design ever since I first saw it, and so I decided to own it





My project began by assembling as many reference images as I could find. At this point I didn't have the Blu-Ray version which is why the final design isn't quite 100% accurate. My initial move was to make the helmet, as if this was wrong, then the whole costume wouldn't look right, so I began modelling in fusion 360 to make a 3D file for printing. I learnt a lot of techniques during this process, including how to do it better in future, however I don't believe that fusion 360 was the best program to do this type of modelling in. Once I had the files, I printed them out and assembled them. A lot of sanding, filling, and painting with Rub'n'buff later, and I had a helmet



Following on from a successful head, I began to design and print the armour pieces. In order to do this, I first had to work out sizes and numbers.

With all of my cosplays, i always work from the inside out, so the layer closest to the body gets done first, and the outer most layer is done last. Because of this, the first step towards making armour, is actually to make the clothing layer underneath. This was made out of a linen cotton blend, and consisted of a simple long sleeved top and trousers. I then used a lining fabric to make the tunic and the head scarves, as this was the closest fabric I could find that gave a similar feel to that in the film.

Once I had a suitable base layer, I cut out different sized armour plates out of packing paper and pinned them to the clothes to work out the correct scale. I then used these templates to take measurements from for 3D modelling.

Again, modelling was done in fusion 360 and printed out, followed by a lot of sanding and more painting



Once the armour pieces were finished, I needed to create a system of attaching them. In the film, the armour pieces appear to be rivetted to each other, however due to 3d prints not being as robust as metal, I opted to make them flexible so as to allow for movement without causing too much stress on the parts. To do this, all the solid armour pieces were backed by faux leather, with the plated parts being assembled on faux leather straps

The armour was rivetted on to the straps with the lower edge of one row of armour plates, being attached to the same strap as the top edge of the next row of plates.

I also 3d printed some buckles which I used as attachments, using brass eyelets in the faux leather straps to prevent distortion.



The final piece of the cosplay is the weapons and shield.

The shield was made from EVA foam using a pattern printed out, and put on to the foam. The symbols were etched in to the shield using a soldering iron, and again, a lot of Rub'n'buff was used for painting.

The pike and sword were 3d modelled, however the blades for both were made from more EVA foam in order to be convention safe

Once these were all completed, i began weathering. This included stamping on all of the clothes to scuff, crease and wear them, splashing watered down clay onto the lower edges, and using salt water on the fabric