Costume - Hobbit Frodo Baggins

I am a HUGE fan of fancy dress costumes and cosplay, but I don't like to buy them. Handmade costumes tend to look so much better and can be made for a lot less money than premade costumes. For this years London Comic Con I decided to go as Frodo Baggins! The most work I had to put into this costume was in making the feet and the cloak.

The first thing I would recommend doing before making any costume is simply searching them on google. usually this way you will find different photos displaying varying aspects of the costume. I also gave myself an excuse to watch Lord of the Rings for "research purposes."

So looking at this picture and others we can determine what we need to make the best costume

Hair 

- You can purchase some quite cheap wigs that can be styled to look like Frodos, however I have shoulder length hair so I decided just to curl it myself, I used the bantu knot method.

Ring 

- I managed to get a very good quality costume ring on Amazon for less that £8 

Leaf Brooch 

- I managed to find a similar looking brooch to the lothlorien one in the film in silver, and i added some shiny green nail varnish in places and it was a very convincing substitute, you can however buy the real thing online and at comic con shows for about £5

Clothes 

- Cloaks are easy to make you just need the right material and someone with a basic sewing machine. I managed to pick up some heavy green material in a charity shop for £2. For the pattern you can find loads of them all over the internet. 

-I already had an open neck shirt but these can be picked up cheaply in charity shops or basic clothes shops like Primark

- I picked up a brilliant floral waistcoat for £3 in a vintage store in Covent Garden called Rokit which suited a Hobbit costume perfectly.

- I never managed to find a coat for the costume but my costume looked good in the end without the added coat. 

- As for trousers my mum had a pair of baggy corduroy trousers from the 80's which with a couple of tacking stitches on the inside looked perfect for Frodo's trousers.

- I also bought some cheap brown braces off Amazon for £5

- I have a Belgian Army surplus bag for WWII that I picked up off the website Past Horizons and it looked perfect as a pack for my Frodo costume, you just need any backpack in brown or green really and perhaps a little scruffy

Feet and ears 

- the ears were easy enough I bought ear tips from Amazon (£4) to make my ears look more Hobbit like 

- I added a little stage makeup to them to blend them to my skin colour 

- The feet took a little work, I bought some novelty feet for about £5 that took some tracking down on the internet, coupled them with some cheap canvas shoes (£3) from Primark to make my Hobbit feet that were comfortable to wear and could be taken off and put on as I pleased. For the full intructions on how to make them please see my next blog. 

Sword 

- last but not least the famous Sting, I simply bought one of the childrens prop swords off amazon for about £8 they may be made of plastic but they look really effective 

And Voila! here is what the final costume looked like 

Hope you enjoyed reading about this costume and that it has given you some help and ideas :)