Ragnarok Loki
For those of you who have been watching my work, by now you know that I'm pretty obsessed with Loki as a character, comic book and MCU. My last completed version of Loki was Kid Loki, who I have taken with me to nearly all of my conventions in the past several years. He has held up so long, and has even taken home best in show after I finally decided to compete with him (along with Ragnarok Loki below and my Jane Foster Thor). It has certainly been a journey with this character, and so the new design I wanted him to be older and to reflect some of the qualities that an older and more evil Loki possesses in the comics. I wanted the new design to reflect more than just the innocence of the child Loki and the quirky MCU Hiddles Loki. This design would honour the darker traits of the Loki of mythology as well. The theme for Ragnarok was the first on my mind, and so to the design board I went!!!
There are elements from various Lokis in this costume. You can see a bit of the 90's along with some of the Trials of Loki aspects and MCU (with the helmet idea). The key to this look was asymmetry. Where Kid Loki was symmetrical and neat and ordered, this design should be able to reflect the chaotic nature of the adult Loki.
Here are some of the references I drew from!!
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| Earth 982 Loki |
You can see where I took the idea of the tabbard and the circle crest. I felt that these were important (and visually captivating) elements to include into Ragnarok's design.
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| Ultimates Loki Earth 1610 |
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| Trials of Loki |
Trials of Loki cover art is just downright beautiful, and really solidified my decision to go with an older, less handsome Loki. Forget them sexy brows, dis is all 'bout dat face! Ahaha The makeup also meant that I could use some pretty important parts of the story just in makeup alone. Like that time Loki got his lips sewn shut by Odin's orders for telling too many lies. :3 Perfect chance to add some scars to the lips! Some pretty deep and dark contouring also made it to the final Ragnarok Loki design.
This piece features:
*A bodysuit
*Tunic
*Cape
*Capelet
*Tabbard
*Sash
*Helmet
*Fur Gaunlets
*Fur boot toppers
The caplet was the easiest place to begin. With so many pieces to this costume, there needed to be a small order to things, getting out of the way the easiest pieces and then working my way outwards.
The caplet is made from a Kona cotton and lined with a gold, poly satin upholstery. It buttons together at the neck and to the tunic. I first drafted the shape onto some brown paper, mirrored it and cut that as my pattern.
The body suit was the next piece. The suit is made from 3 different spandex colours. A light green, a forest green for the sleeves, and a textured gold for the details. I chose to use a darker green on the sleeves to brighten the gold (bringing out the details) and to marry it to the dark colour of the tunic. The leg portions would be a lighter green just because it was a bit more chaotic and separates the top part of the costume from the bottom.
Because of the gold details, I had to create my own body suit pattern from scratch. Luckily I have had some experience with this after making two versions of Harley Quinn and then my dragoon. XD This suit has golden lines along the thighs (symmetrical), and the sleeves are asymmetrical with a couple gold lines around the left wrist and then the Loki-like "V" on the right upper arm. There was no need to do the wrist details as the right arm would have a fur gauntlet worn on it.
The tunic was a fun little piece! The design is asymmetrical, so the tunic slants at an angle towards the end and also has two oddly placed and dissimilar yellow stripes on the front. The tunic is make of Kona cotton (there's a trend in using kona in a lot of my costumes. XD LOL). The yellow stripes are made the same way you would make a collar; interfacing and two strips of fabric sewn and turned. They were then stay stitched and sewn onto the front of the tunic before the tunic itself was put together.
When all of that was finished, the tunic was lined with a thick poly blend and then a yellow bias was sewn along the bottom edge.
The tabbard is made with the same fabrics as the tunic. All kona and a cotton bias. I made the pattern for the tabbard by hand and just cut from there. The tabbard is lined with a yellow cotton (same as the tunic yellow). And here is where the fun starts!!!
Detail work!!!
As I said, this Loki design is based off of Ragnarok, and somehow I wanted to portray the story of Ragnarok on the costume. This dubbed the costume as "Story Loki" instead of "Ragnarok Loki". This was the first time I ever hand embroidered, so it was an adventure! To be able to really show off the meaning of the costume, I needed texture, so machine embroidery just wouldn't cut it.
The design is actually a combination of various nordic tattoo designs and norse symbols. Originally it depicted Odin riding on Sleipnir, but I changed Odin and made a more comic/MCU version of Loki on the horse instead. A combination of satin stitching, braiding and just winging it. XD I gave some colour to Loki's cape while still keeping to that organic, old-fashioned texture and overall appearance of the embroidery. Gungnir is shown to be magical with some metallic threads that have been weathered and tugged at messily. For a bit of added touch....I used some red thread to represent the end of Odin as King of Asgard.
This symbol represents Loki as King of Asgard with the mighty Gungnir, riding the great eight legged horse Sleipnir and trampling over his fallen brother, Thor (as shown by the hammer beneath the horse).
Another gem was added after the embroidery. The tabbard's underside features the story of Ragnarok, written in elder futhark. Some of the text was changed a bit to reflect the story I was trying to tell with this costume; mostly the ending where it says that Loki now rules Asgard.
The characters were hand painted with a metallic bronze paint onto a scrap piece of micro suede. The edges and fabric were weathered with a candle until perfection. ;) Then the whole piece was sewn by hand onto the garment using an inconsistent "x" stitch.
For fun, I added a cute butt-cape. This is a type of micro suede I found at a random hole in the wall fabric store. It was perfect, so I bought some and used my handy-dandy candle to detail. I cut strips to use as ties for everything to hold the costume together, and to put the gauntlets on, and to hold the dangling rings.
This thing here is the belt used to hold the cape onto the costume. This belt wraps around the body and meets together with a golden ring in the center of the chest. The leather was also weathered with a candle for more detail and some pieces cut smaller for asymmetrical purposes.
The sash is pretty self explanatory. It's a super long piece of chiffon sewn together to make a scarf and then the edges were finished with golden fringe.
Here is the completed front and back of the costume without the armour pieces!!!!
*Additional notes*
~There are 6 golden rings that were painted in 24k gold that give nods to the comics
~The rings dangle off the side of the cape belt to counter balance and keep the cape from sliding. (practical purpose!)
~The cape belt ties in two spots...one on the back (across the left shoulder and under right arm) and one on the left side
~The cape is fully lined with a forest green micro suede
~The cape is a pleated half circle so when you see it from the back, it looks fancy and you can see the lining
The next entry will talk about and detail the making of the helmet. <3
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