Edward Kenway
There's a brand new project underway - Edward Kenway from Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.
I began this project by developing a sloper for the torso pieces. This basic pattern was used to create the 'jacket' and the leather vest. Once I had the fit the way I wanted, I used one side of the muslin for the 'jacket' and the other for the vest. Here are pictures of the muslin being fitted and the resulting paper patterns that came from it.
With the patterns for these two foundation pieces done, I began construction. I started with the jacket.
I first made the shell in French blue suiting with a slight rib woven in and twill with a nice natural tone. I decided to go with a natural tone in the twill because it already has an excellent depth of color, will reduce the amount of work needed to bring it down in the distressing stage, and I'll never have to worry about it blowing out in front of a camera.
The next step on the jacket was the braid trim on the front. This was zig-zagged to the front sections before adding linings and facings. There is also small white piping that will edge the seams between all of the blue and twill sections.
Once the braid was done, the jacket could be faced and lined, and the collar added. Here is the complete (to this point) jacket with the shirt (still in progress). The shirt was made of lightweight ivory linen.
The vest was next. Using the pattern, I built the base vest in brown leather. I then began adding details. The first of these to go on were the front edges and the shoulder pieces.
I found some very cool jeans buttons in a gunmetal finish with skulls embossed on them - a perfect choice for the tabs on the front of the vest. These will also be used on the leather sections for the arms.
The front tabs with the buttons were added, and the back straps with the rings were riveted on. Here are a few pictures of the finished vest with the jacket.
The next component to assemble was the 'tab skirt' that goes under the jacket. This piece makes up the iconic 'Assassins' hemline that appears in all the games. We decided to do this as a separate piece on its own waistband and worn over the breeches and under the jacket.
Here are pics of the front and back sections before they were attached to the waistband.
With those sections complete, I moved on to the cowl. The cowl is probably the most iconic element of any Assassin’s Creed costume, so I wanted to give it the attention it deserves. I began with all my references, my 'Ed Head' and a big chunk of muslin.
I first made a very basic collar and two-piece hood to match it. I adjusted the shape of the hood until I was happy with the shape of the back, the overall drape around the collar, and the shape of the front. I then drew on the seam lines that I needed for the back 'v', the slits in the back of the collar, and the center back piece of the hood, and I also decided to include the seams on the front of the hood that appear in many of the AC cowls.
Once the muslin was marked up, the patterns were transferred to paper.
The cowl was then built in the same distressed grey as the other pieces, and the blue details were added to the back.
Next, I started on the bracers. These were made in black leather, the edges bound, and the same skull buttons from the vest added for the ties.
The upper arm bracers were the same black leather shaped slightly to fit the curve of the bicep/shoulder, and the elbows made a third piece tied into the other two.
These upper arm segments will be finished with bindings, and the upper arms will get the same skull button details to complete the pieces.
Here are some pictures of the costume so far - layer by layer:
The next thing on the list was finishing up the bracers. These consist of 3 pieces each: a base piece, the upper bracer, and the blades.
The base piece is simply a piece of black leather with elastic straps on it. This piece fills in the space under the upper bracer and prides a base for the blades. The upper bracer is the piece with the buttons outlined above. The blades we used were mass-market (due to time constraints) with some modifications.
We stripped the blades to their base components, took them apart, cleaned up the paint, and added leather straps with silver buckles instead of the straps they came with.
Here are the finished bracers as they appear on the costume.
Next came the belts. This version of the costume has four main belt components: the gun bandolier, the black cross bandolier, the black belt with the rings over the sash, and the middle belt section that connects the vest.
First, we did the vest belt section. After much deliberation, we decided this belt was just the front section attached to the vest to hold it closed. We created a buckle with Sculpey and cast it in resin. We then made faux belt straps in matching leather and used heavyweight snaps to attach the ends to the sides of the vest.
We created the main strap for the gun bandolier, measured the gun straps, and riveted them on. The hardware was all sculpted, cast in resin, and epoxied on. The bandolier closes with a snap just under the skull on the shoulder. The other belts were created by measuring and cutting leather strips and riveting them to the various pieces of hardware.
And here’s the finished costume along with a companion costume made for our convention.
