8
Jul
Battlefield Earth Terl Custom Costume
A Battlefield Earth Terl custom costume based on the Frank Frazetta cover art for the 1982 novel for convention appearances.
Battlefield Earth often brings to mind the John Travolta movie and novel by L Ron Hubbard, but we think of Frank Frazetta and his fantastic artwork! Our Battlefield Earth Terl custom costume was created for the publishers to use when marketing at trade shows and convention appearances. To bring such a large and iconic character to life as a wearable movie style creature costume was definitely a tall order, but the end result looks like it walked right out of the pages of L. Ron Hubbard’s classic science fiction novel.
We began this custom costume by sculpting the helmet. Sculptor Steven Richter worked over a human life cast to ensure that the helmet would have enough room to fit over a performer’s head comfortably. This also ensured that the eye holes would be correctly placed once the piece was molded and cast in fiberglass. Through the process we were in constant contact with Galaxy Press, our clients for this project and the publishers for L. Ron Hubbard’s novels. As they know the characters best, we worked very closely with them to ensure the finished costumes (we built two copies so they could handle multiple conventions or trade shows at once) was something stayed true to Frank Frazetta’s original depiction and the novel’s descriptions of Terl.
For his body suit we started with a foam and fabric muscle suit to give us Terl’s large body proportions. These were customized with additions to the shoulders and neck muscles to enhance his powerful look. To that we hand stitched fur from one of our favorite vendors, National Fiber Technology.
Our Battlefield Earth Terl custom costume has a tunic that was completely hand crafted out of leather. Steven created the basic pattern, similar to a gladiator’s tunic and assembled the leather armor using metal rivets to give it a futuristic warrior look. Once the basic tunic shape was set, we added all of the metal bits and greeblies which had been given a distressed finish so the whole costume had more of a worn in look.
We completed the look with a pair of customized leather boots and a pair of sculpted monster hands with giant, black resin claws and a sixth finger on his right hand. That’s something in the novel and an early request from our clients. The finished costumes fit actors 6′ 4″ to 6′ 9″ tall, making for a massive, horrific, werewolf in space sort of creature! Perhaps you’ll run into him at a comic con or trade show some day soon!
Need a custom costume for your production or for marketing or appearances? Email or call today and let’s discuss your project!
The original 80's sci-fi novel is back in print!
