Introduction: Easy LOTR Witch King Costume From Scratch

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The Lord of the Rings Trilogy has been a family favorite for a long time. There is one certain character that, in my opinion, would make an awesome costume. That character is the Witch King of Angmar. He is the most powerful of nine kings of men who were deceived by Sauron, the Dark Lord.

This costume is very easy to make and looks amazing. To make it, you only need some very easily acquired supplies.

Supplies

Supplies

  • Black bed sheet (the length of the sheet should be at least twice as long as the distance between your two wrists when you stretch your arm out. The width of the sheet should be a little longer than the distance between your neck and feet)
  • Black sports shirt (this will go over your head, so make sure you can breath and see through it easily)
  • Black gloves
  • One piece of poster board (about 2.5 x 3 feet)
  • Lots and lots and lots of tin foil
  • Cardboard

Tools

  • Sewing machine (along with black thread and a needle, obviously)
  • Strait pin
  • White crayon
  • Ruler
  • Pencil
  • Glue (I used silicone glue)
  • Black permanent marker
  • Scissors
  • Exact-o
  • Tape
  • Stapler
  • Compass (the kind you make perfect circles out of)
  • Protractor

Step 1: Making the Robe

The first step in making this costume is to make the robe. I have provided some simple plans in the first two pictures to give you a better image of what should be done. Fold the black sheet lengthwise and sew up two ends that you put together. You should now have a tube large enough for you to fit in. Next, lay the sheet flat on the ground. Lay down on the sheet with your neck on one of the open sides of the sheet, and put your legs together., and have a helper trace your arms and body with the white crayon. Then, have your helper use the strait pins to mark the opening where your head will go.

Next, sew on the white line that was drawn, and then cut around it to make a "T". Sew the top opening of the sheet from both edges to the strait pins, leaving a gap in the center. Cut open the holes where the arms will go, and now you have your robe!

In the last two pictures, all I did was put the black shirt over my head. So far, so good :)

Step 2: Planning the Mask

The mask of the Witch King is the part of the project that takes the most amount of work. To start, we will just draw the design out on the poster board and cut it out. I have divided the mask into three parts: the face, the horn, and the spikes. The horn goes up from the forehead of the face, and the 16 spikes surround the top of the face and the strap that goes around the head. Pleas refer to the first two pictures above to draw out the mask. I actually drew out with the compass four circles instead of two. Two were 3 inches in radius, and two were 4 inches in radius. Then I used the protractor to divide the circles into four equal parts.

Cut out the pieces (I cut the eyes out with an Exact-o knife), Fold the face and the horn in half lengthwise, and they are ready to be covered with tin foil and put together!

One quick thing: Drawing the little circles around the top of the face isn't necessary, since we'll be covering up the whole thing in tin foil later, but they do give you an idea of where the spikes are going to go.

Step 3: Making the Creases on the Cheeks

The mask for the Witch King has some creases on each cheek that kind of look like bat's wings. To make them, all you have to do is press down your thumb under and to the side of the eye, while pressing up with one other finger on each side of the thumb. This is illustrated in the first picture. Do the same thing to make the other section of the "wing". Keep folding the creases to make them sharper and more distinct. Then do the same thing to the other side.

Step 4: Metal Face Part 1

We are going to use the tin foil to make the paper mask look metallic. The side we cover first will be the back of the mask. In this step, we will only do the "tusks". First, cut a piece of tin foil larger than the part of the face you want to cover. Apply glue to the desired section of the face, and stick the piece of tin foil on top. We will always apply the foil with the dim side facing up, until we get to the last step. Cut the off the excess tin foil, leaving a little bit around the sides. Apply glue to the tin foil surrounding the face and stick it to the back of the face. If the tips of the "tusks" don't turn out so well, just use the scissors to make the tips you want.

Step 5: Metal Face Part 2

The next step, as you might have guessed, is to cover the rest of the face. Sometimes, the curves that curve inward, such as the nose and the eyes, are a bit difficult to cover. One thing that helped me do this was to cut the tin foil into little "tabs" before I glue it to the back side of the face. This technique is shown in the first two pictures above. Once you have all of one side of the face covered, flip to the other side. This will be the front, or the show side. Cover this side following the same steps you used to cover the first side, but make this side as neat as possible. The creases in the cheek will most likely fade, so you will probably have to do them again.

Step 6: Metal Horn

Cover the horn, both sides, just as you did with the face. I also cut the tin foil into tabs around the curve before I glued them to the back side.

Step 7: Making the Spikes

It is now time to make the spikes that will go around the head. Take any one of the "pizzas" and cover one face of it with tin foil. Then, roll the two strait edges together to make a cone. Try to make the cone as small as possible by overlapping the edges as much as possible. Tape the edge on the outside to secure. Do this to all the "pizzas", both big and small. You should have a total of sixteen. Then, take one of the small spikes and cut the bottom of it at about a 45 degree angle, and then cut the tip off of the bottom, as seen in pictures 5 and 6. This should make the spike stand slanted when the base is on a flat surface. Use this first piece you cut as a pattern to cut the same angles only on the small ones. The large ones should be left as they are. The last picture provides you with an idea of how the the spikes will go together on the face. The small spikes will go above the large spikes.

Step 8: Attaching the Horn to the Face

To attach the horn to the face, we are going to use the stapler. The "forehead" of the face will overlap the base of the horn by a little bit. Staple the two pieces together and cover up the staples with a glued piece of tin foil. The mask is almost done!

Step 9: Coloring, Coloring, Coloring, and Finally, Putting Together

In this step, we are going to darken the entire mask. There are two ways to do this: using a black permanent marker or black spray paint. In the absence of black spray paint, I went with the more time consuming use of a permanent marker.

We will start by blackening the face and horn. When using a permanent marker, color a little bit of the face, and use a scrap piece of tin foil to roughly dab the colored piece of mask while the marker is still wet. This will create a sort of old and rustic effect on the mask. Do the rest of the mask, little by little, and then do the all the spikes using this same technique. I only did the show side of the mask, but you could do both sides if you wanted to.

If you are using black spray paint, then spray the mask as lightly as possible. You don't want the mask to be completely black.

When you are finished painting everything black, glue the spikes onto the face. There will be eight pairs. As seen in the last picture above, one pair will go above each eye, one pair to the corner of each eye, and the other two pairs spaced evenly on the headband. Leave a little bit of space on the ends of each headband so that they can be stapled together. Staple the bands together so that it fits comfortably on your head while it's covered by the black shirt. One more step to go :) :) :)

Step 10: Finally Finished!!!

The last step to making the Witch King of Angmar costume is the sword. This part is relatively easy. I have provided a drawing of what the sword looks like. Trace the outline of the sword on a large piece of cardboard. Then cut it out, and draw on the sword the details on the hilt. The parts of the hilt that were left white in the drawing are going to be covered with tin foil, shiny side up. I told you we were going to use lots of it ;). Apply glue to the parts of the hilt that will have foil on them. Then cover them with pieces of foil and cut of the excess. Glue the rest of the foil to the sides and back of the respective areas. Once all the three parts of the hilt are covered in foil, color the rest of the sword black. Put the robe, mask, sword, and black gloves on (have you forgotten about those yet?).

CONGRATULATIONS!!! You have now completed the Witch King of Angmar costume. Have fun showing it off!