The gauntlets stay closed with lacing on the back. Real rivets were used on the gauntlet because I was afraid glued re-painted googly eyes would be too prone to being knocked off. I used the same re-dyed leather to also cover parts of the gauntlets. The gauntlets are eva foam bases, with worbla edging and detailing. The front plate's base is also eva foam base with details done worbla too. The plates have snaps on the back and just snap to the loincloth/ skirt. I got mine from Yaya Han here: For the hip armor I used Eva foam for the base, then used strips to do the all the details and googly eyes for the rivets. It's a thermal plastic that is super easy to work with. At some joints I did sew it for extra stability.įor the armor I used a new material called Worbla. I used a mixture of snaps and domed rivets to hold all the straps in place. The hide I was using was to soft to use on it's own and needed to be reinforced in order to keep everything in place. For all the straps on this costume, I glued to pieces of leather together with rubber cement and then stitched them together. For the loin cloth, it really is just a glorified belt with four panels sewed to it. The leotard then goes around my neck in halter.
However, since she doesn't have a true back to it, just straps, I ended up making a spandex thong that then snapped to straps coming from my waist. Aela's 'top' looked like a leotard to me based on how taught it was vertically. I drafted own patterns by draping spare cotton on my dress form. Since Aela's outfit is so unique, as it is a backless leotard with a four-part loin cloth/skirt.thing, I didn't even try to look for a base pattern to modify. Being as it was not the color I wanted, I de-glazed the hide and re-dyed it a darker color. It was the closest color hide that I could find in my budget. The original color of the leather was light warm red-brown. So I went to Tandy leather and got one of their clearance/cheaper hides for this project. I considered using vinyl for the garment portion of the costume, but decided that it would not give the look I wanted to achieve. When I set out to make this costume, I was very determined to make it look as authentic as possible. In the end it was worth it because I'm really happy I took the extra time on this to create it how I envisioned it.
I ended up not being able to shoot with him but, it allowed me to finish Aela at the speed it needed to be and not rushed. Sadly, this was one of those costumes that just took WAY more time than you ever thought it would. I had planned on making this costume much later this year, but I had the opportunity to do a snow shoot in lake Tahoe with one of my favorite photographers. Being a werwolf is just bonus points in my book. I have to say that Aela is one of my favorite badasses in this game. Prints of this costume (and others) can be found here: Īela the Huntress from the game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.