Lady Loki
- Character Name:
- Lady Loki
- Source:
- Marvel Comics
- Costume Variation:
- Female version
- Debuted At:
- The Avengers Movie Premiere (May 2012)
Reference
Costumes Notes
When I heard that a group of friends were dressing up for The Avengers midnight premiere, I knew I needed to get in on it. I quickly claimed Loki for myself and started looking up ways to make the crown.
The driving force behind this costumes was a long love of Loki from Norse mythology and Tom Hiddleston's portrayal on Loki in Thor. And I wanted to make the horned crown.
The horns have a wireframe base to give the initial shape, which was then covered in crumpled tin foil to bulk them out with as little additional weight as I possible. The tinfoil was covered in Paperclay to create a even surface, then sanded to get the two horns as identical as possible.
The crown is a couple layers of fun foam, heat formed and glued together to form a solid base. The design is based loosely on Loki's crown when inhabiting Sif's body in the comics (commonly referred to as Lady Loki).
The original plan was to create a couple of shims to fit between the horns and the crown out of Paperclay so that they would point forward and not to the sides. Unfortunately, they kept drying oddly and I wasn't about to use them. Instead, the shims ended up being made from hotglue and cardboard, which added a lot of unplanned weight to the front of the crown.
Once everything was assembled, it was covered in a couple layers of paper-mache, followed by gesso and more sanding to get things fairly smooth. Final layers were acrylic paint to cover and give it an aged/weathered look.
The crown is held in place by a couple of elastics that run behind my head and are covered by the wig. The original plan was to sew the elastic to some snaps and glue the snaps to the crown, which would allow for quick removal at the theatre without having to remove my wig. First problem with this was that the glue (any of the glues) wouldn't hold onto the crown, so I ended up sewing the snaps to the crown. Second problem was the pull on the elastic and the weight of the crown was too much for the snaps and they wouldn't stay together. So in the end, the snaps were superglued together and the crown can't be removed without removing the wig.
The dress was bought, the belt borrowed, the bracelet inherited, and the shoes I already owned.
I later made a small faux fur bolero shrug as homage to Loki's fur cape.
Overall, I loved this costume as it was fairly comfortable and surprisingly recognizable. Only downside was that the crown is front heavy, so I had a perma-frowny forehead when wearing this. It also pinched slightly on the sides, but it was not more uncomfortable than any of my other costumes.
