fotoblitz



Ringwraith Cosplay



The Nine



Die now and curse in vain





When I first watched Lord of the Rings as a kid, the Nazgul scared me enough that I imagined they were in my room that night about to stab me in my bed! So naturally I wanted to be one, I wanted to be able to create that feeling of terror myself!





This was one of my first full cosplays, so I neglected to take many progress shoots. However it was a relatively straight forward build overall.

The first thing I did, was get a reference image from the film, my priority was to get the shape right, as the Nazgul are not quite humanoid in the shoulders. I built up a neck brace that would slope my shoulders and drop the head lower, this meant I could wear the hood normally and not have to have it floating above my actual head.

I used an old cap for the hood, which I built up with a bit of wadding over the peak to give the correct shape.

The robes were then made by using a lot of natural weave fabric, First I built a tunic with attached sleeves that I made far too long, and far too wide. This allowed me to gather them up for the pleating.

I then made the over-robes. In order to prevent me from having to do sleeves again, this was sleeve-less and used as much fabric as I could, gathered at the shoulders, to give the draped look.

The last layer was the hood layer, this was made from another large piece of fabric which I ended up doubling up over the actual hood part, I attached this to the hat I had previously made, and added another piece just covering the shoulders.

I obscured my head by using a morph suit head



The armour was created using 2 different methods. For the gauntlets. the main hand and finger parts were 3D printed flat shapes which I then heat formed. I used superglue on the inside of the hand part ridges to hold them in shape while I gently heated and shaped them to ensure they fit together properly. As my 3D design skills have now improved, I would probably have 3D printed them already in shape, but that wasn't an option back then!

The wrist was made with an EVA foam base, covered in worbla, this was to provide comfort while wearing.

The finger plates were superglued on to a pair of tight leather gloves, I wanted to make sure that they were tight to give as much dexterity as possible to add to the creepiness.

All of the foot armour was made with a single sheet of Worbla, heat shaped and attached with screws, the shins were created like the wrists, with an EVA foam base covered in worbla.

The whole lot was airbrushed in a metallic silver, and then accented in rust, to give the decayed look.


The last step was the weapons. I used the hilt for the sword from an online file, and modelled my own blade in order to accept a wooden rod on teh inside for strength. The handle for both the sword and the Morgul blade were wrapped in real leather, the blades were painted with a silver rub 'n' buff.

The scabbards were made with EVA foam, wrapped in thin cardboard, wrapped in real leather, this gave them structure, but also protected the blades from being scratched. These were then attached to a real leather belt with buckles bought from Germany made of wrought iron.



I ended up also making a horse, this was an inflatable horse costume which I modified by covering the legs with armour, adding my own reigns, and adding an additional fan to support the weight of the extra costume.