Thread: King Hamlet's ghost: aka Unorthodox's ghost knight.

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This is REALLY not how I had envisioned spending my year. I have a started project sitting in the garage on hold for nearly a month now, and it's going to be probably another month before I can get back to it.

No sooner did I finish up Alexander the Great, than I was hit with ANOTHER request for a suit of armor.

My older son needs a costume for King Hamlet's Ghost.

The Ghost appears first to a trio of soldiers—Barnardo, Francisco, and Marcellus—and a visitor to Denmark, Horatio. The men draw their swords and stand in fear, requesting that Horatio, as a scholar, address the ghost. Horatio asks the ghost to speak, and reveal its secret. It is about to do so when the **** crows, signaling morning, and the ghost instead disappears. In this scene, the Ghost is clearly recognised by all present as the King, dressed in his full armour. It is also said that he had appeared to the castle guards at least twice before at exactly the same time.


King Hamlet is described by other characters in the play as a warrior, as he led Denmark's forces to victory against Norway, and personally defeated its King in hand-to-hand combat. Hamlet respects him, saying Claudius pales in comparison to him, and frequently reflecting on him in an endearing manner.

So, what do you know, I gotta make ANOTHER suit of armor. And, where Greek armor was a simple cuirass and laminate armor, Danish armor is more like a full suit of mail.

Will get some pics up soon.

So...

the first step in making KYLE into King Hamlet's Ghost was to get a body form...So, we wrapped him in rigid wrap, cut it off, and attached the halves back together with more wrap. It's quick and dirty, and not a real life cast, but infinitely cheaper and quicker.



Instead of the long, boring, paper mache, cheese cloth and glue method, 2 quick layers of burlap and monster mud get us to this point in 3 days, what took me nearly 2 weeks on Alec. I really can't believe I didn't think of this on Alec's armor.



In another 'you idiot why didn't you think of this THEN' moment, the back of Kyle's armor is going to have a seam we'll just velcro shut for easy on/off action. Alec is something of a contortionist, so slipping his over his head wasn't a huge deal, but should have thought of this then...

That's just mod podge which remains flexible, prevents the itching and fraying of the burlap as well as a super simple means of attaching the pieces together.


Some quick paper mache to smooth the front out, and the chest piece is all done save for some paint and drying. Shoulders are up next, but I need the chest dry for that as well.



And, no, Talia is not being left out. (and yes, that's a heart on there if you look close...)

Your little kids will cherish.
Scary picture for me, I had four boys, how does one go about raising a girl?! Just a lame joke of course.
Is she going to be a knight too?
Armored Princess? Why not?
Special times for those very special little ones, and you.

The chest-piece , a warm-up practise before you get to the helmet?
I made a pretty good helmet from poster board. I made another such item stating with an old plastic safety helmet....."cheat" get those round parts from something else.

Talia is equally at home playing house with her dolls, or whacking the boys with swords. Coming from a family of all boys, I'm pretty scared of raising a girl, too...But, she really gets into halloween, and boy stuff, so it's been ok so far. Her dance class last halloween they all went in costume, you had the full lineup of Disney princesses, a Strawberry shortcake, and a "Pirate sword princess, ARRR!".

Her armor will be closer to Alec's Alexander, getting a kilt once the cuirass is finished, I don't know about a helmet, if she wants one.

As for Kyle,

Since he is acting in it, I don't know exactly HOW or IF I'm doing a helmet yet. You want to cover as little face/head as possible. Since it's a King, we might do a crown instead of a helmet.

The cuirass (chest piece) is a warm up for the pauldrons (shoulders) and fauld (waist). Then we will move down the arms and legs.

I'm not doing gauntlets or Sabatons (hands and feet) for technical reasons (pain in the butt), but haven't decided on cowters and poleyns (elbow and knees) since I'm not entirely positive how I would go about actually attaching those easily.

Speaking of, the pauldrons in monster mud (will mache a better shape over this base)



And, various forms are drying for the other pieces.



Yes, the mache is lumpy, we'll have to go back over it with Das clay.

The armor update...



All plates getting sealed for painting.



Our present dilemma is how to do the chain portion...

I have seen people make fake chain mail by painting a sweater with silver spraypaint. Use a sweater with a wide open weave. Multiple light coats should do the trick.

heres a couple of links:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5923882_make...chainmail.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_6858427_do-m...hainmail_.html


Not sure if that helps.

Thanks, I'm going to have to look into that.

You are a great Daddy!! I looked at the link to "Alex the Great", also. Excellent job, as always. I'm impressed that your son's class is doing Hamlet!

http://www.instructables.com/id/The-...ainmail-Shirt/

Yup, neat effect and really easy

Some people say long underwear works to an extent, also. If you want to you can make slices of plastic pipe, then just get the kids to assemble the mail using plastic instead of metal. Thats how LotR did the extras armor