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| HTTYD2 promo image with old and new character designs |
At the opening of How to Train Your Dragon 2 (HTTYD2), we discover five years have passed since the events of the original movie (HTTYD). Astrid Hofferson: a fiercely determined 15 year old, has blossomed into a lovely young woman. However, don't let her looks fool you --she may have matured over the years, but even at 20, she's still pretty competitive and protective over those she cares about.
I admit, I didn't care for Astrid when she was first introduced but in the last quarter of HTTYD, Astrid completely won me over by revealing another side of her. She wasn't just the kick-butt, girl power stereotype she appeared to be on the surface ... She was also encouraging and nurturing (in her own way), able to spur the heir of Berk into decisive action and --well, "why I love Astrid" is a whole other post. *wink* On to my first costume breakdown!
I'll warn you now, it's very detailed, but I researched a lot for my costume. This was the first costume I've made before the film premiered, so I was working with promotional images and screencaps from the trailers (which you should be able to click and enlarge most of) ... Feel free to add you own suggestions and input in the comments section!
Shirt:
Astrid wears a sleeveless red top. It's a muted, kind of rust red and there's a similar texture to the fabric as her shirt from the first movie. It's probably meant to simulate knitting or maybe nalbinding (a more ancient craft). There is variety to the stitch size and sections of the fabric seem to shift their rust red tones subtly. Her top has a jewel neckline, with a small slit in the center (probably for ease when dressing).
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| Back of caplet with hood and hair detail |
Caplet:
Over this, she wears a new, short dark brown fur caplet. It's fastened with four leather strips connected to a silver-gray ring (see above image). The hem of the caplet looks like it's curved like the bottom half of a circle. From certain images, it looks like the inside of her cape isn't fuzzy fur (see arm warmer reference image below). It looks lined with a suede or perhaps the backing of the pelt she used, so it's smoother. It could be fur in the lining, but I decided to make it suede for my costume --I'll find out for certain once the blu-Ray is released.
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| Hood detail, different angles. Also can see the shape and length of the caplet. |
Hood:
Her over-sized hood is lined with an off-white, almost cream colored fur. It's a longer nap (the "hair" is longer) than the dark brown fur of her caplet or the tan fur on her skirt. The fur also rims the the edge of the hood. The outer fabric of her hood looks like suede. It's probably attached around the neckline of her caplet, but the front of her hood has two small silver skulls to the left or right of the ring/clasp of the caplet (see shirt detail image). The hood is large enough to fan around her shoulders in a way that reminds me of a shawl collar a bit ... really wide. As seen in the film, she's also able to pull it up and it creates a round shape as it frames her face.
Spaulders: She has silver-gray shoulder armor, composed of five curved "bands" that are covered in evenly spaces silver-gray studs that are shaped like little domes rather than the spikes she wore in the first movie. Based on various screencaps, starting from the smallest band (closest to her neck), I counted four studs, three on the second band, four on the third band, five on the fifth, and then six on the largest, most outer band. These shoulder armor attach to her brown fur caplet, underneath the large fur hood.
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| Arm warmer and caplet lining detail |
Arm Warmers:
Her arm warmers are probably completely lined with the off-white fur that forms the cuffs, which would explain the bulk. They completely cover the palm of her hand and run just to her elbow. There are no individual finger slots, except for her thumbs. Each arm warmer is likely patterned out of two pieces, since there is a seam on each side. The seam is top-stitched on both sides of the seam with brown thread. Brown leather lacing or cord binds the arm warmers in a particular pattern (as seen from the reference images). The same type of leather lacing also binds her upper arms in the bicep area.
Skirt:
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| Skirt, spikes, and skulls detail |
Her skirt is made of two layers. The first layer is a tan colored fur. The nap of the fur is short and probably close to the length of the nap on the dark brown fur of her caplet. If you look at the full body image, the skirt sits on her natural waistline (around her bellybutton) and the hem ends at about her fingertips.
The over-skirt is made of brown leather panels, which have rounded ends and narrow a bit to the waist. If you look closely, it seems like the panels are held at about the "beak" section of the skulls which seem to attach the panels to the narrow brown leather waistband of her skirt. In the movie, we see that the panels are completely sewn to the fur skirt, so they don't dangle from the waist, but I wouldn't suggest that for real-world practicality. If you don't want to remain standing the entire time you cosplay Astrid, attach the panels only at the waist, so you can flip the spiked skirt panels out of way when you sit down!
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| Pouch detail |
The skulls are similarly shaped, but have small organic differences. They are about two times larger than the skulls on her caplet. There seems to be about 10-12 panels, with a skull attached on top of each, minus one on her right hand side, where it is replaced with an oval-shaped leather pouch. It might be stretched or formed leather, since it looks quite structured. There is a darker brown strip that seems to serve as the fastener to the pouch. There are also four silver-gray spikes on each panel. The two closest to the waistband the skirt are slightly smaller than the spikes near the wider bottoms of the panels. There's a narrow "collar" or rim of sorts at the base of each spike (see skirt image), which probably have something to do with how the spikes are attached to the skirt.
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| Knee pad and pouch detail |
Leggings and Knee Pads:
Her leggings are a dark indigo blue and they fold and crease around her legs above the knees a bit.
Over her leggings she wears two brown leather knee pads. There are no straps crossing the back of her knees, so they might be sewn to the leggings. However, there are short little tabs or something on four sides of each knee pad ... I'm guessing that's the actual way they're rigged. There are also two curved lines on each knee pad which are probably sewing or structural lines.
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| Boot detail, note bands on toe |
Boots:
Her boots are brown leather or suede. They are flat, with no heel and the shaft of the boot is covered in fur. Tan colored fur with a wide off-white fur cuff. There are brown leather cord stitching and criss-cross designs on the front of the tan fur and there are three leather strips crossing at the toe of each boot.
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| Hair detail, click to enlarge |
Hair (and Makeup?):
Finally, her hair. Astrid's golden blonde hair is put in a much more elaborate style. Her fringe (that is, her bangs) are shorter than in HTTYD and is swept to her left. She also has some longer pieces framing her face on the sides. On her right side, it seems those strands end just above her shoulder or barely brush them. Her hair is parted at the top of her head, where a narrow knotty braid (perhaps a dis-proportioned three strand braid with one very narrow section) frames her face like a headband that joins into a side braid on the left side of her head. It looks like either a knot braid, round braid or three strand braid, wrapped with a section of hair. This main braid is tied off with brown leather cord. She wears a leather headband (I believe it's called a kransen), a bit lighter brown than the rest of the leather in her outfit. It goes under her bangs and the narrow braid, but over the rest of her hair.
I'm not sure what type of makeup Vikings may have had, but Astrid's eyelashes look like she used a bit of mascara!
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| My version of Astrid Hofferson --how'd I do? |
A few more notes on proportions and colors:
- The width of the leather strips fastening her caplet seems to be the same width as the three strips covering the toe of each boot.
- Her caplet's hem ends just above or at her waist, above her skirt's waistband.
- The brown leather of knee pads and her over-skirt's panels look the same.
- All the silver-gray metal on her outfit is "worn" or "aged" ... not quite a gunmetal look, but almost.
- The fur used for the main part of her boot covers looks to be the same or a similar color to the fur used for her skirt.
- The fur used for her hood lining, cuffs on her arm warmers, and the cuffs on her boots are the same or similar.
- The tan suede-like material for her hood and her arm warmers look the same.
- The brown leather cord on her arm warmers and tied on her upper arms are the same.
Stay tuned for more --I'll be posting on how I created my costume soon! Be sure to link and comment if you use my research guide for your Astrid costume --I'd love to see it!
[Edit: updated labels Jan. 4, 2015]
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