Wish: Gothic ٧ Vampiric outfit

Rate:

{[["☆","★"]]}

"She lives beyond the grace of God, a wanderer in the outer darkness. She is "vampyr", "nosferatu". These creatures do not die like the bee after the first sting, but instead grow strong and become immortal once infected by another nosferatu. So, my friends we fight not one beast but legions that go on age after age after age, feeding on the blood of the living."

Van Helsing in Dracula (1992) movie

Last year, I got the most unusual outfit wish. Weldon asked for a gothic or vampiric outfit for his elf maiden Draculetta. He mentioned he knew it's not exactly LoTRO lore-compliant, but he is very much into gothic subculture and all his characters are named after famous female vampires from movies and TV series. I was thrilled by this request, because as you might have noticed, I enjoy working on outfits which are atypical, maybe even a little bizarre within Lord of the Rings world. Here are some basic requirements Weldon outlined for the outfit:

• red and black colour scheme,
• no raid pieces if possible,
• demonstration of vampiric nature.

He also sent me a picture of Draculetta's current outfit, which she used to switch with red set from Isengard pre-order.

It took me a lot of time to reply, as I just had one of my blogging breaks. However, after about a month of rude ignorance (although non-intentional) I sent him two designs:

Here I went for a little masculine style, leaning to the Underworld style of female vampires. If the pants and top could be leather, it would be just perfect. Hellish cloak added to the atmosphere.

The second design differentiated only in use the cloak, but it made a big difference. Here I took a very slight inspiration of True Blood's Jessica outfit in the Season 4 finale - here's just a little sneak peek:

Weldon was very thrilled about both designs and he found particularly "Jessica outfit" wonderful. I sent him a list of items used, but unfortunately we found out he out-leveled the Cloak of the Galadhrim (which is the only cloak with rich velvet design ingame). So we were left with the first design to work on.

And here comes the result!

I'm pretty "template persistent", but here I dared to change the font to add a bit of vampiric style to the outfit presentation. Pity I can't make just one particular post with black background :) Anyway, a long time has passed since Weldon made his wish and he approached getting Cloak of the Galadhrim with one of his alts, so he might be able to recreate that one too.

And one more teaser from me - I fell in love with True Blood's Jessica inspiration, so I will post another outfit of this style later this week. Hope you will like it, as well as Draculetta's one! :) Please let us know your opinion in comments!

This outfit consists of:
Chest: Scout's Armour, black dye (T6 crafted; available under different times among T6 crafted medium gear)
Legs: Tattered Leggings of the Dunland Sage, black dye (Dunland quest; also available from Dunlending reputation barter as Dunlending Leggings of Diplomacy)
Head: Fine Elven Circlet, default dye (Anniversary gift box)
Shoulders: Padded Mantle of the Dunland Soothsayer, crimson dye (Dunland quest)
Hands: Hyrde-folme, crimson dye (Dunland quest)
Feet: Rusted Boots of the Dunland Berserkers, crimson dye (Dunland quest)
Back: Flames of the Deep, crimson dye (Skirmish cosmetic barter - Rift cosmetics)

Note: In the original design I made, different gauntlets and boots have been used - named: Reinforced Leather Dunlending Gauntlets, Polished Boots of the Dunland Shieldman (both available from Dunland quests)

Wish: Guardian of Dale

Rate:

{[["☆","★"]]}

Most wishes I receive from readers are role-playing based. I love working on these, because I often learn much about the lore. This was also the case of an outfit for Edna, a female guardian of Eldar server. She is a character of Edward of Les Furets du Gondor, one of the biggest LoTRO fansites of the Francophone community. Edward described Edna as a very strong woman, about 45 years old, honouring her Dale origin. She wears no cloaks, nor helms or hats.

Edward outlined the requirements for Edna's outfit:

• battle ready and heavy,
• colour scheme around burgundy, red, crimson, brown and eventually some green shades,
• no cloaks, helms or hats used, only circlets,
• if possible, matching Angmar Prized Steed of the Free People,
• and most importantly, outfit should be Dale themed.

He also sent me current picture of Edna:

I did a little research on Men of Dale, but I wasn't successful in learning more about their clothing habits. We can assume they mostly wore cold climate suitable clothes, but that's basically all - all I found was a few fan art pictures which didn't show many common characteristic features different from other men clothing. So I took a free hand and sent Edward first two designs without any specific elements of Dale origin:

In the first design, I went for a simple combination of good old ringmail and burgundy/gold plate. The chest piece creates nice cleavage and is still functional. Boots and gauntlets are also plated to offer protection of crucial bones. There is a simple touch of elven design on the leggings and shoulders, but they make the ringmail interesting. Edward loved the asymetric spaulders. But as men of Dale got their weapons and armours from the dwarves of Erebor, it would seem inappropriate to incorporate such significant elven influence into the outfit. However, he decided to try other combinations keeping the circlet, chest piece, gauntlets and boots from this outfit.

In the second design, I tried a more colourful and daring combination. I reused the beautiful Annúminas pieces Edna was already wearing, with goal to still match the horse. I thought the outfit looked interesting from back also, which might be an advantage when staring at character's back while playing. However, Edward didn't like this design - it's a mixture of styles and doesn't fit Edna at all.

So, we decided to try more leggings to pair with the rest of design number one, adding furry shoulders Edward liked. I was a little worried because I knew the elven leggings I used before are the only ones with this type of ringmail. All the others (man, westernesse and dwarf ones) have much bigger rings in the ringmail and it looks much less "noble". Also, they don't match the chest very well, so I knew I will have to experiment with the chest pieces as well. I sent Edward different chest & legs variations of design 1:

I also offered to try something completely different, in case Edward didn't like any of the combination. In the end, he was happy with number 1 and 5, but asked for the "different" design, to be more sure of his choice :) Meanwhile, I also thought of other combinations, so I sent him both new (hauberk) designs and more variations of the design 1:

a

I'm personally not a big fan of hauberks, especially on women, but I thought they could work as they have clear dwarf (design3) and man (design4) heritage. Anyway, I was happy when Edward said he also didn't like hauberks, but totally loved the first of the new design 1 variations, with the dragon scale!

I read a few more notes on Men of Dale and learned they were fighting the dragons of Lonely Mountain for a long time. I created the design 1 variation using dragon scale armour, so the outfit could be justified as wearing trophies of Edna's enemies. This fit Edna's role-play very well, because she's already had legendary weapons named after dragons.

The piece I listed as a chest piece in a shopping list for Edward was drop from Rift. He wanted to avoid stalking the AH, so he found the same looking armour in skirmish camp. Now, we proudly present Edna in her new signature armour :) Being heavy and protective, it still allows enough agility to move around the enemies and doesn't limit the character's movement.

This outfit consists of:
Chest: Breastplate of the North-Drake, burgundy dye (drop from the Rift; also available as Frost Covered Hauberk from Skirmish heavy armour barter)
Legs: Scalemail Leggings, burgundy dye (Heavy armoursmith vendor; also available as Restorated Soldier Leggings bartered for Arnorian coins in Evendim)
Head: Ceremonial Hat of the Elder Days, default dye (Skirmish barter - Cosmetic vendor, Rift cosmetics)
Shoulders: Fated Westfold Campaign Shoulder Guards, burgundy dye (T7 crafted)
Hands: Hyrde-folme, burgundy dye (Dunland quest)
Feet: Rusted Boots of the Dunland Berserkers, burgundy dye (Dunland quest)

What do you think of the outfit? Please let us know in the comments! :)

Wish: Simple hobbit girl meeting the Rangers

Rate:

{[["☆","★"]]}

You might know Brassica from her stories publishes on Casual Stroll to Mordor. This cute and courageous hobbit lass already has a lot of fans, and her journey has just begun! Her travels brought her to Evendim where she is meeting a lot of Rangers, and so far didn't have a proper battle garb suitable for the circumstances. Beldrieth, who is telling Brassica's stories, revealed: "This is the first time Brassica's even thought about something like armour, she an innkeeper's daughter, who hasn't ever dressed for any real adventuring."

This is how Brassica dreamed up her outfit:

• simple and practical (nothing too fancy),
• nothing too heavy - she just can't carry much weight and as a warden, she prefers to be quick and hard to hit,
• something to honour the Rangers she's met in Evendim who gave her a lot of support (and some armour too!),
• she wanted to avoid high-end raiding pieces, otherwise she was willing to do a lot of effort to collect parts of her armour.

To fit into Brassica's role-play, I checked her bio and sent Beldrieth three designs which I thought would suit her:

 

The simplest of the three outfits - here I used dark shades of Evendim blue (to reflect Brassica's Oatbarton heritage) and typical ranger hood & cloak. The chest piece is Inn League Tunic and Pants, so it could also be interpreted as her heritage as inn keeper's daughter. Beldrieth was so enthusiastic about it that I have to quote her e-mail, because it made me really happy :)

"As a proud Sage of Fine Spirits myself, I love the Inn League angle. It hadn't occurred to me to make that connection for her, but it's a wonderful thought. I don't know if it quite fits what I had thought of in terms of her armour needs, but now I know that Brassica is a badge bearing, card-carrying, member of the Inn League."

This outfit includes very pastel green colours, similar to what Brassica wore before. It looks the heaviest out of the three designs, however, it can certainly keep her well protected.

And finally, Beldriet's winner. I designed this as a distinguishable warden outfit, where Ranger element is represented only by the shoulder piece with typical star. Beldriet said about her choice: "I think this outfit is just perfect, looking at it from the standpoint of putting together a story to go with it, it looks like she was given a mail shirt that's entirely too big for her, and a leather hauberk that's needed to be tightened with a variety of straps and buckles in order to fit properly, and the shoulder piece is just the perfect little nod to the Rangers." And she said I've hit the nail on the head - this made the hobbit inside me proud! :))

And here comes the result!

This outfit consists of:
Chest: Scout's Weathered Leather Jacket, olive dye (Dunland quest)
Shoulders: Fine Grey Company Wrap, olive dye (Quest: Volume III, Book 5, Chapter 1: Separate Ways)
Hands: Resilient Westfold Combat Gauntlets, olive dye (T7 crafted)
Back: Warden's Pack, olive dye (Outfitter vendor)

What do you think about the outfit? Please let us know! And don't forget to visit Brassica's blog to read about her adventures! :)

Wish: Matching outfit for the Steed of the Rune-keeper

Rate:

{[["☆","★"]]}

I was very honoured when Ketani, a Casual Stroll to Mordor's contributor asked me for an advice with outfitting. I know that she is a person with very good fashion taste herself (one of her Yule outfits also placed high in our Yule Outfit Contest 2011). She won a Steed of the Rune-keeper for her lovely elven lady Prolixity. Although she usually has outfits which match her mounts very well, this time she was struggling to find the right combination. She sent me her temporary horse-matching outfit, where she went for complimentary white (which can never spoil anything :).

This was already a decent outfit in my opinion, but Ketani was far from satisfied with coordination of the outfit with the horse. She also sent me a few pictures of other horse-matching outfits she wore, and I realized they were really much more superior to this one. She was also looking for the outfit to be usable in battle situations (not only while showing off the pretty mount :) and wanted the back of the outfit to be interesting. Well, character's back is what we generally see the most ingame :) However, cloak wouldn't work because of heavy luggage the horse is carrying. Ketani also mentioned she's not looking for an exact match to the mount's colour scheme, because that would be most probably impossible, so we were considering complimentary shades most of the time. I sent her first two designs:

    

I used the Sage's Pack because it was fitting for a rune-keeper, interesting and not "too long" as a cloak would be. With the robe, I was hoping to reach a complimentary shade to the horse, but as I don't have this steed myself, I could compare only to screenshots. Ketani tried these two out and unfortunately, the colours were quite far from matching. However, Ketani liked the idea of using a robe and found the wonderful Great Hoary Aurochs Robe:

We discussed the colour scheme a bit in e-mails and Ketani mentioned she is willing to try out any colour except for yellow and turquoise. Despite avoiding turquoise, she mentioned she likes sea blue. As she mentioned it, it clicked to me, tried this dye on the robe and thought it really worked well! So I sent Ket a modification of her design and also different robe stylized in a similar way (but this was more colourful and striking):

    

Ketani tried the third design (aurochs robe in sea blue) and found out the colours worked really well with the horse! From this design, she changed bracers I used for fingerless gloves and the final version of the outfit was born :)

This outfit consists of:
Chest: Great Hoary Aurochs Robe, sea blue dye (T5 crafted)
Head: (Lesser) Arrow of the West Helmet, umber dye (Ost Dunhoth hunter level 65 set)
Shoulders: Fated Westfold Campaign Shoulders Pads, umber dye (T7 crafted)
Hands: Fingerless Gloves, umber dye (Yule festival)
Feet: Strong Westfold Battle Boots, sea blue dye (T7 crafted)
Back: Sage's Pack, white dye (Store)

Ketani also built a version of this outfit to wear in town when she feels like wearing a cloak. In this modification, it becomes a beautiful feminine winter outfit.

In this version, Ket used circlet Hat of the Ancient Tongue (part of Mirkwood rune-keeper set), Warm Winter Cloak (Yule festival reward) and dyed the items purple.


And now, a final view of the outfit on the beautiful, yet unmatchable horse :))

Please let us know what do you think of the result! :)

Wish: Adorable hobbit in purple

Rate:

{[["☆","★"]]}

Some time ago, I received a wish for an outfit from Evlin, cute hobbit minstrel of Crickhollow. She also sent me a picture of her current outfit:

Evlin had a very good idea of what she expected from the outfit. The main idea was "a perfect cosmetic outfit that reflects the personality you want to give your character (beautiful, adventurous, battle-worthy) and you keep it on from level 1 (exaggeration) to level 75 only changing the colors once in a while." Except for this, she had following requirements:

• Outfit either casual, battle-ready, cute and basically designed for a hobbit
• Ceremonial Cloak of the West-tower used in the outfit
• Colours: purple (violet works too, but purple is best), also Evendim blue, any shade of green (for a minstrel) or Ered Luin blue
• No raid gear whatsoever unless it can be bought somewhere else, no store items in the outfit and hopefully no higher level gear

I sent Evvy the first two designs:

In the first design, I tried to combine the cloak and Evvy's favourite purple colour in a way that it's "hobbity" enough. Hobbit lasses look amazing in dresses, and although it's not exactly battle ready type of clothes, minstrel usually keeps her distance, so she doesn't need heavier armour to protect her. And such a nice cleavage forming dress would certainly help her increase morale of her fellows :)

In the second design I went for rich hobbit traveler look - turquoise and gold combination. I included shoes in the design, but barefoot works too.

Evvy didn't like the first outfit very much, because she would feel like she betrayed her characters by making them run around marshes and slimy caves in dresses, and I had no other choice than completely agree :))

She liked the second outfit very much and wanted to wear the same in purple dye. However, there were a lot of Tier 6 crafted items used and Evvy had no access to those. Also, the robe (most widely known as Survivor's Robe) was only acquirable very expensively for skirmish marks, or from the pre-Moria epic questline at that time (it's now available in the store as well). So we tried to come up with something similar and easily acquirable. I sent her the third design:

All of the items used here (except for the cloak) are purchasable from vendors or crafted up to Tier 5, so they are widely available on Auction Hall. Evvy loved the second variant shown in this design and asked for items list. She was so keen to already be wearing the outfit, that she didn't even wait for it and took initiative - she built the outfit herself, using slightly different outfit, but keeping the overall impression, which I value very highly :))

Evlin mentioned she will probably later switch to the Survivor's Robe when she gets it as a quest reward, but until then, Long Fancy Robe purchasable from outfitter vendor is a very decent replacement :) 

Please let us know you opinions on the outfit! :)

Final result:
Chest: Long Fancy Robe, purple dye (Outfitter in Michel Delving)
Shoulders: Guardsman’s Medium Shoulders of Naillan, purple dye (Skirmish medium armour barter)
Boots: Esquire’s Medium Boots of Adlan, purple dye (Skirmish medium armour barter)
Cloak: Ceremonial Cloak of the West-tower (Skirmish classic barter)

Wish: Courageous and noble warrior

Rate:

{[["☆","★"]]}

This outfit was wished by Vikuuta, level 38 champion of Firefoot more than two weeks ago. It is an example of outfit which doesn't contain any quest rewards - only not bind-on-acquire items, which can be crafted or purchased at any level and equipped cosmetically via wardrobe. Basically, if you have gold or good friends (or both :)), you can wear it from level 1 (more or less - after you can access the wardrobe) until level 75 and it looks pretty good in most colours.

Vikuuta asked for following criteria to be met by his outfit:

• Armour should show the metal parts, but still show the colour of the armour
• Colour of the armour:  grey (the metal), green and, if possible, some details in gold
• A helmet that doesn't show the face of the warrior
• Some big boots
• Some giant shoulder guards
• Some big gloves, too

I sent Vikuu the first design:

...and I was really surprised by his amazing reaction, he loved the initial design very much and didn't want to change anything! But I myself wasn't still confident that this outfit is something that would really make him stand out in the crowd, as he wanted to.

I played with other cloaks and gauntlets. I didn't want to change the boots, which might not be big and badass looking, but it was my purpose. I wanted to make them "disappear" and kinda compensate for the upper part of the outfit being very broad. This way, the whole body creates a V-shape so typical for well-trained warriors.

I sent Vikuu the variations of gloves and cloaks, as well as colour switch - I tried Ered Luin blue just because of the noble feeling to it. And voila - to me, it clicked absolutely!

Vikuu liked it very much also and agreed blue one is better, because it adds to the 'warrior' feeling. However, he also mentioned beautiful symbolics he wanted to express by colour of his outfit - green being the colour of courage. So in the end, we decided to show you, readers, both variations :)

It might take Vikuuta some time until he gets all the pieces necessary with the help of his friends, so he asked me to publish his outfit with screenshots of my character. I hope we will be able to update this post with Vikuuta's own screenies soon!

Please let us know you opinions on the outfit :) Do you like green or blue version better?

Final result:
Chest: Elven Soldier's Armour, Ered Luin blue/Rivendell green dye (T5 crafted)
Legs: Elven Steel Leggings, Ered Luin blue/forest green dye (Heavy armoursmith vendor in Rivendell)
Head: Strong Westfold War Helmet, Ered Luin blue/forest green dye (T7 crafted)
Shoulders: Dwarf Leather Shoulder Guards, Ered Luin blue/forest green dye (Medium armoursmith vendor in Thorin's Hall - only the one near the throne sells it)
Hands: Resolute (or Sustaining) Gauntlets of the Galladhrim, Ered Luin blue/forest green dye (T6 crafted)
Feet: Defender's Boots, Ered Luin blue/Rivendell green dye (T3 crafted)
Back: Ceremonial Wig-feld, Ered Luin blue/forest green dye (Store)

Wish: Éomer inspired outfit

Rate:

{[["☆","★"]]}

Let me use a way-back machine and take you to long forgotten pre-Isengard era of outfitting :) Today I present you brave guardian Tomeoric of kinship The Westfold Marshals on Riddermark server!

This wish-based outfit has made it to this blog's book of records - as longest time between a reader made a wish and its publishing :) It was still hot summer (July 30th), when I received a wish from a reader who was listening to CSTM cosmetics roundtable and noticed that I'm trying to fulfill readers' wishes for their desired outfits. The process of outfit creation took approximately a month and it was another two months until publishing - we wanted to publish Tomeric's and his daughter's outfit at the same time, but in the end didn't finish the second one (private life & RoI came in the way :)).

Tomeoric gave me very specific and interesting requirements (which I am thankful for :)):

• outfit inspired by Éomer and Théoden battle armours
• brown, burgundy and crimson tones with gold highlights (also typical for Rohirrim battle armours)
• matching to Prized Angmar's Free Peoples Horse

The first design I created seems a little bit funny now - although at that time, I found it quite decent :D I was trying to imitate Théoden's hauberk, which was pretty difficult considering I could work with pre-RoI and non-class specific pieces only:

Tomeoric provided a very detailed feedback, which helped me learn a lot - we discussed many peculiarities of Rohan armour design and I enjoyed it very much. I must quote one of his comments on the design above, because it made me laugh very hard: "I think the color/design from neck to waist and from elbow to shoulder is great - near spot on. From the waist to boot top, if you look quick, it looks like he is wearing an apron.  Now that I've seen that, I can't not stop seeing it!  Give him the Prized Pie to carry around and it would be the perfect Mr. Mom of Edoras." He was so right :)

I created second design, abandoning the hauberk attempts (as most of keen LoTRO fashionistas know, the pre-RoI hauberks were not manly at all and didn't resemble Rohirrim design even remotely). This basically meant getting closer to Éomer than Théoden from the initial idea. I also mentioned there are leggings ingame with plates on thighs similar to Éomer's, but they don't look good, so I used the elven ones:

Tomeoric and his home jury (all family playing together and helping him look the best :)) gave thumbs up for this design, but had particular remarks. The helmet hid character's hair (unfortunately headgear in LoTRO hides hair - I already had a small rant about it when I was designing Link inspired outfit), and he wanted the cloak to match the burgundy more than bronze/silver parts of the outfit. We agreed I will try more helm & cloak combinations. He was also interested in the "ugly plated trousers" I mentioned, so I showed them to him:

As you probably noticed, I didn't try more helmets due to hair hiding and we discussed that using just a circlet or no headgear might work better in the end. Tomeric picked his final cloak and I sent him the final design we agreed on:

Key features of this final design (besides remote inspiration by Éomer's battle armour) were matching the burgundy, silver and bronze parts on all armour pieces and introducing as much plate as possible. I also sent Tomeoric the "shopping list" with pieces used, and he started the journey to obtain them all. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to get Gaerdail - boots used in this outfit dying very solid burgundy (similar crafted boots dye differently). So we decided to switch boots for the ones available in the store.

Tomeoric liked this outfit very much and since he collected all the pieces, he even received a lot of ingame compliments. I was a little worried because of how close we got to Kedwyr's Elven Defender's outfit, but you readers can see yourself how long was the process leading there :) Now, even though the fashion trends in Middle-earth have changed a lot with Isengard, we are both interested in your opinions about about the outfit :)

Final result:
Chest: Breastplate of Orod-Na-Thôn, burgundy dye (world drop)
Legs: Leggings of Orod-Na-Thôn, burgundy dye (world drop; also available from Rivendell heavy armoursmith)
Head: Circlet of Helmingas, default dye (Isengard pre-order)
Shoulders: Shining Dwarf Leather Shoulder Guards, burgundy dye (world drop)
Hands: Gauntlets of Orod-Na-Thôn, burgundy dye (world drop)
Feet: Brushed Leather Boots, burgundy dye (Skirmish cosmetic vendor or store)
Back: Ceremonial Defender's Cloak, burgundy dye (Store)