This awesome costume recently won the Staff Choice Award in the annual costume contest at Gen Con 2005, the largest gaming convention in the country!

“Wrangling Randolf”

By Costume Designer Janice Bennett

In the spring of 2004 my Lord of the Rings costumer group received a curious post soliciting costume designs for a parody movie called The Dork of the Rings.  So naturally I climbed right on board and selected the character Randolf since I felt my experience with my Gandalf the Grey costume would be a great benefit. I also discovered the production was located in South Bend, Indiana about three hours drive from my home near Indianapolis which was even more exciting since it meant I would be able to participate directly in the film.

Tim was interested in a kind of hobo look for Randolf so I got the idea of making him into a hippie with tattered jeans and a staff made out of a curtain rod with part of the curtain still attached.  After reading the script, I submitted some “Randolf as hippie” designs for Tim’s consideration and a design for a scene in which Randolf is dressed for the beach. He also asked for Randolf the Grey to have a coat with a lot of patches per a concept sketch he had made.   Tim met with his staff and they decided they wanted to keep the hobo look for Randolf the Grey and stay with the hippie look for Randolf the White.

I created the final design for Randolf, taking the patched robe and a hat with a corkscrew crown from Tim’s initial design.  And I did a hippie design for Randolf the White, basing it upon a “hippie guru”.   I would make the robes and hats, and see what I could come up with at Good Will for the rest. I got in touch with Dave Kiefer, the charming actor playing Randolf, to get measurements and sizes.

I modified a Simplicity Wizard Pattern to make a mockup of Randolf the Grey’s robe and created my own pattern based on a medieval outfit called a sclavine for Randolf the White.   And I made a cardboard pattern for the hat brim, as I had previously for my Gandalf hat.   I crafted a pipe out of tree branches and found a nice funny crooked limb on my workbench for the stem of Randolf’s pipe, which Dave then modified into an actual smoke-able prop after some creative drilling.

I came to the first script reading in South Bend to meet the cast and crew and to fit Dave with my mockups and the clothes I had purchased.  I had deliberately made the hem and sleeves on the robes a little long, so I had quite a bit of pinning up to do at the fitting.   Fortunately, the clothes I had purchased fit very well.  Dave had brought some additional items from his costume stash and we completed Randolf the White with some white trousers, sandals and a great pair of hippie style sunglasses.  Tim and his staff were planning to have a Dork of the Rings booth at a Summer Festival in one of the City South Bend parks and Tim asked me to come along and work on one of the costumes at the booth.   I decided the best thing to do was to finish Randolf the Grey’s robe and then sew the patches on at the booth.

I went fabric shopping and picked up some nice grey “dollar a yard” fabric at Wal-mart for RTG’s robe and remnants in grey patterns for the patches.   Included in my designs was a bright colored fabric to be used on all Randolf’s costumes to provide some visual continuity.  I unexpectedly had a great deal of trouble finding cheap white fabric for Randolf the White and ended up making the costume out of two white sheets.

I then started on the hat, for which my Gandalf experience stood me in good stead.   I made the brim out of plastic cross-stitch webbing, and the crown out of some stuff called “Wet N Shape” (which does just what the name says) and wire.   My first attempt at making the crown corkscrew was a failure, as the wire was too flimsy and flopped around all over the place so I changed to some sturdier wire.   I padded the corkscrew with packing peanuts and wrapped it round with the Wet n Shape and took this interesting construction with me to try on Dave. At the festival I happily found that the grey robe and the hat fit Dave, and he adorned himself as Randolf the White to attract festival-goers’ attention.    I started sewing patches, talking to people, watching the crowd and Dave, and the open auditions for the still uncast role of Arogant.   Alas, Randolf the White had a couple of problems.   The Sculpey peace symbol was just too fragile and disintegrated well before the end of the day, and I had put too long a piece of elastic on Randolf’s belt!  Well, it was only a test. Dave to the rescue – he said he could cut out a metal peace symbol since I had provided the pattern.

Back home, I sewed patches.  And sewed patches. And sewed more patches.   And sewed still more patches.  I had an advanced case of patch fatigue before the robe was finished, but it finally was, and I washed it to get the patches to fray at the edges for that “used” look.   Then I covered the hat with grey felt, gritted my teeth and sewed a few more patches on it, ending up with a bright red one on the tip of the famous corkscrew and one last big red patch on the seat.   I had finally managed to locate some grey lace for RTG’s staff, made it into a curtain and shredded the ends with scissors.  I completed RTG with an old grey piece of rope for the belt.

I went up for the first day of shooting and helped Dave with his new costume and was extremely pleased to see RTG finally come to life.   Not to mention that the two of us (I was dressed in my costume as a female throbbit) made an extremely interesting sight for the early morning golfers at the course where we were shooting at five a.m.!