My little brother, who's 12, decided that he wants to be Gandalf the White for Halloween 2004. Being the awesome sister that I am, I gladly obliged. As a warning of sorts, this is a Halloween costume - it won't be completely accurate due to time and budget constraints. Also, I apologize for the white spots covering my brother's face - I don't feel completely okay about putting unedited pictures up of him since he is a minor. Hope you understand. :)

Status of Costume: complete

Started: June 2004
Finished: Oct. 31, 2004

Materials Used:
Cape - white linen and silver leap clasp from Joann's
Outer Vest - quilted muslin for the main body and bone colored vinyl for the 'leather' panels, also from Joann's
Tunic - two types of quilted muslin for the sleeves and regular muslin for the main body, also from Joann's
Pants - regular muslin and elastic from Joann's
Accessories - included:
- white braided belt from the Dollar Store, less than $5
- two old leather belts from Goodwill (for sword holder), less than $5
- plastic sword and scabbard, already owned
- for staff: white PVC from Home Depot and a decorative finial from Joann's

Patterns Used:
Cape - self drafted with help from ACS
Outer Vest & Tunic - self drafted
Pants - self-patterned from a pair of my brother's pajama pants

What I like:
I'm really quite pleased with how the entire costume came out and my brother absolutely *loved* it. If anything else, I'm just happy that he liked it and had fun trick or treating (though you'd be surprised just how many people were *wrong* guessing just who he was...Moses? A Ghost? Please.). I'm also really happy with the cape - I think it's my favorite part of the entire costume.

What I would change:
With the minor tunic catastrophe due to a growing boy, I'd like to redo the tunic to fit my brother (and allow for more growth) before he wears this costume again. As it is, I don't even know if the tunic will get over his head now. We just did a quick fix to get him through Halloween 2004, but it really does need to be redone. Also, the paint started flaking off the sword and scabbard as well as the staff, so I'd like to repaint those with spraypaint made specifically for plastic.

LJ "Diary": gandalf

To see the reference images used to make this costume,
check out my Gandalf the White research.