Up-Close and Personal with a Miserable House Elf

Ok.  So here's why I'm posting the house elf first:  he's easy.  Jon's house elf costume was by far the simplest outfit to make and he embodied the character spectacularly; never breaking character.

(side note: I give up.  I saw a blog after the movie about how a group of kids met our house elf and he had to ask permission to take a picture and they thought it was awesome, but I can't find it again.)

Sad as it may sound, Jon was actually the most popular in our group.  A few people approached to ask us who we were and then scurried off when I threw my pure-blood Wizard supremacist attitude at them, but EVERYONE wanted a picture with "Dobby". 

First note: It's sad to me that at a Harry Potter premiere, clearly dressed in costume and excited for the movie that people would think I seriously thought I was better than them. 

Second: Jon was not Dobby.  Not that I don't loves me some Dobby, but he was not Dobby.  Quite in fact, we didn't even give him a name.  We felt it better suited the characters of the Lestranges that they would care so little about their house elf that they would not even refer to him by name.  And we did not.  He was referred to as "House Elf" the entire night and he held my purse and cowered in our presence and it was glorious!

Now that that's cleared up:

So Jon's costume was quite simple.  House elves (aside from Dobby once he is freed) are described as wearing burlap sacks as tunics and fashion any other clothes out of what they find lying around.  So that's exactly what we did.

I purchased a strip of burlap that would be long and wide enough to go over Jon and I sewed the sides, leaving openings for arms.

For his "shoes", I used scraps of fabric from Rodolphus and Bellatrix (pretty sneaky, right?) being that a real house elf would've fashioned his own "shoes" from scraps found around the house.

We found a nice rope that we agreed seemed like something the Lestranges might have lying around their home and wrapped it around his waist and attached elf ears (as well as added a little paler, greenish tint to his skin).  The final product was incredible, especially with Jon's incredible acting in the part:

Thanks to the amazing Alex Rothauser for magically making Jon look like a tiny little house elf.

Stay tuned for Bellatrix and Rodolphus!




CosPlay with me
-Angi