And now for something a little off the beaten path...

After seeing Hellboy 2 in late July, I decided that Prince Nuada's ivory outfit from the final fight scene would be this year's Halloween costume. References here: [link] [link] [link]

Overall, nearly two hundred hours went into this and I'm very pleased with the result. I decided to do his ivory outfit since I couldn't find any good textured black fabrics to do one of his earlier costumes.

The tunic is made from five fabrics: a mid-weight upholstery for the upper, a patterned 'environmentally friendly' cotton for the skirting (rather appropriate, I thought), some red polyester for the lining, some polyester sequined panels for the skirt decorations (slightly airbrushed so they weren't so black), and some decorative upholstery for the cuffs and inner collar. I drafted the pattern from scratch, did a couple of muslin mockups, and went from there. The entire process is documented on my LJ here: [link]

The pants (not visible here) were also made of the red polyester and I had to draft up the pattern for those as well, since he seemed to be wearing something vaguely akin to pluderhosen, without the stripping.

The belt, which is seperate from the sash, is made of a thick leather base to give it the stiffness needed. It works the same as a corset, lacing nice and tight in the back. I did the interlocking fabric pattern with strips of the red polyster by cutting two inch strips, ironing them over to get one inch strips with a nice clean edge. Then I glued them on with contact cement in the pattern seen there, which isn't half as complicated as it looks. The belt plate is made from Cintra, heat-shaped a little, and painted.

For the armour, I started with the same pattern pieces as the tunic and then cut them up to the right shape. Like the belt, the armour base is made from 3 oz leather, with the various panels hand-stitched together. Then it was all covered in ivory-coloured pig skin. The pipe-beads went on last. There are over 1700 of them and they all had to be burnt slightly to get the same look as Nuada's in the film. I did this with safety matches - nice and long and slow burning - and by stringing them along an old guitar string. Then I hot-glued them to the armour. The glue has held up pretty well for the most part.

The sword was sculpted, cast, and painted by Jesse Sinclair of Push the Red Button Studios: [link] I absolutely, totally recommend him for any kind of casting or prop work because he does a stellar job.

I didn't make the crown because, frankly, I thought the design for it was bloody awful.

I had a white wig that I wore with this at Halloween but I decided to go without it for the photographs here. Definitely not canon (and nor are the unblocked-out eyebrows) but I find it all looks a LOT more natural. Was never really a fan of how white they had him for the film anyways. I had originally planned to dye my hair for this costume but after the hairdresser described the horrors of bleach I decided not. At one point, though, I do promise you more pictures with the proper hair and makeup.

That should be it, I do believe! Again, much of the creation process is on my LJ here: [link] I have WIPs of pretty near everything so if you've got any questions, don't hesitate to drop me a line!

PS I'm not sure if there are copyright issues with having the Hellboy 2 logo in the bottom right hand corner there. If there is, shout at me and I'll take it off.