Nikolai Costume Build
As a personal project in Summer 2020, I wanted to create a costume for a character from Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone fantasy books, Nikolai Lantsov. Since the character only existed in books at the time, I didn't have a visual reference for the costume and had to design one myself. Combining that and the complexity of what I came up with, this became my most ambitious costume to date.
Finished Product
This was how the finished costume turned out. The coat was sewn from scratch, the shirt, boots, and vest were bought, the pants were bought and modified, and the crown and gloves were also made from scratch. Here I'll show the whole process starting from the initial design.
Original Design
The character I used for this project is a prince disguised as a privateer in a fantasy world inspired by tsar Russia. To begin the design process, I created a moodboard with inspiration from historical Russian patterns and fantasy royal clothing. I then pulled from those pictures and the bit of description given in the books to decide what I was going to create and made this drawing to work off of while I built the costume.
Coat Construction
The coat was the main part of the build. I used a frock coat pattern and altered it to add cuffs and extra detailing. Shown here is the finished coat next to a few progress pictures of its construction.
Coat Details
A huge part of the coat was the detailing. I decided to hand-embroider the four bottom corners, the shoulders, and the back. I also sewed soutache braid onto each of the cuffs and part of the collar in certain patterns in addition to the trim I added.
Additional Props
In the books, the character has a curse that gives him monster-like hands. Instead of having to do makeup, I painted skin-tight gloves and added fake nails to create the same effect. I also made a crown out of wire and stiffened lace and holsters with faux leather and rivets for toy pistols that I could attach to my belt.
