How to Make the Witch King of Angmar's Gauntlets

Last Halloween I decided I was going to become The Witch King of Angmar from The Lord of the Rings. This was quite a daunting task lol. When I finished my gauntlets I thought how nice it would be to have it all laid out nicely for others to make. Because anyone can make these! All the materials are simple and easy to work with, the only thing that this project requires that is valuable is your time!

I’m going to go through how to make just one glove. To make the second one, just repeat all these steps.

Supplies

Things you will need:

~ Cereal box cardboard

~ Hot Glue and Hot Glue Gun

~ Scissors

~ X-acto knife

~ Small brass paper fasteners

~ Masking tape

~ Pencil

~ A pair of gray gloves (thick or insulated ones are best)

~ Ruler

~ Silver spray paint

~ A sheet of 2mm gray foam

~ Black elastic or black straps

~ Lots of time and the desire to become a Witch King XD

Step 1: Print the Pattern

The first thing you need to do is print out the pattern and cut out all the pieces!

Below is a downloadable pattern! I found this pattern somewhere online, (I can't remember where, sorry. If you know, or it belongs to you, let me know so I can credit the rightful owner!) it does not belong to me. This pattern was too big for me. I think it’s set up for a man. To fit me, I had to print out the pattern at 65% for the hand pieces and (for whatever reason) 70% for the finger pieces. I’m a 5’3” tall woman, just to give you a reference. You’ll just have to print out a few different sizes, cut them out and try it. Just remember, a lot of these pieces get smaller when you do all the bending to them. Prototype a bunch and you should find a sweet spot!

As great as this pattern was, I had to make a few changes. I designed my own arm guards, fixed up one of the finger pieces (it wasn’t straight), and added another piece to the hand plates. The patterns for these things is below! (these are made for someone of my size, so you may have to print it out bigger)

Step 2: Cut the Plates From Cardboard

Now that you have all your paper patterns cut out and in your size, it’s time to get out the cardboard!

Start with the hand plates. I set up the pieces so that one of the creases in the cereal box goes straight down pieces 1-4. Trace the shapes as shown and then cut them out. Make sure to keep your points sharp, as this is supposed to be as deadly looking as possible. It’s a good idea to write on the back of each piece their respective numbers, so you can keep track of them better. Now you’re going to recreate the lines shown on the pattern by bending them in.

Making your bends with a ruler, like shown, keeps your bends sharp and minimizes worthless creasing. Finish out each bend with your fingers, firmly pressing it and working out any kinks.

Since you cut the pieces with that pre-made crease in the middle, all that fold requires is a little work with your hands, just making it bend the way you want. They should all look like this when you are done.

Step 3: Cut the Knuckle Piece

With piece 8, be sure you cut out a tab on the side that doesn’t have one on the pattern. There needs to be one, trust me. Just do your best to use a ruler or eyeball it and draw the guidelines on your cardboard piece. Then bend it with your ruler, working from one side to the other. When you’re done you should be able to hold it like shown. And then line it up with the rest.

Cut out of cardboard the “back hand piece” from my pattern too.

Step 4: Stack the Pieces

Okay so now we’re going to start connecting them. Let’s just focus on doing the first four pieces first.

This is where your masking tape comes into play. Place a piece at the back of number four and when you like where 3 sets, press the tape onto it. Repeat with pieces 2 and 1. Then tape my “back hand piece” behind them all, with enough sticking out for the tabs on 8 to fit on.

Step 5: Put the Brads In

Once you like how it’s looking, get out your X-acto knife and cut a tiny “x” into the bottom of 3 so it goes through the top of 4. You’re going to have to put a lot of pressure on this little area until your blade makes a mark on the back of 4. Then you can flip it over and cut from that side until you have a hole through both pieces. Stick your brass fastener through and flatten it out. Make sure you put it through so the tabs flatten out like shown, so you don’t have a tab sticking out.

Repeat the same thing on the other side and then put one through the bottom of 2 too.

Putting the brads through the bottom of 1 and all the pieces underneath it is not so easy. You’ll be going through probably 3 pieces of cardboard so it’s going to take some time to cut your hole with your X-acto knife. You’ll get it though.

Step 6: Attach the Knuckle Piece

Then line up 8’s center with the line going down all the other pieces. To join the center of piece 8 to the rest, I used a staple! Just flatten out the whole thing and try to center it the best you can, then staple. It’ll take a bit to get it in the right place, so just take your time, because you only get one shot! Then line 8’s tabs up with the visible parts of my “back hand piece”, cut a hole through and put your brads in.

If your points get beaten through any of these processes, you can always put a bit of Elmer’s glue on your fingers and smooth it on the point. Once it dries it’ll be stiff again.

Step 7: Cut Out the Finger Plates

Now to fingers. Trace four D1 on some cardboard and cut them out. This time it’s really important that you write D1 on the back of each piece, because otherwise you are totally going to lose track of them in with all the others. When you’ve got them cut, give them a little curve. Repeat the process with the D2’s (I recommend using the D2 from my pattern)

I made 12 D2’s. I did 3 each on the pointer and ring fingers, 4 on the middle finger and 2 on the pinky. If your fingers are longer than mine, you’ll have to do more. It might be a good idea to make some extra in-case you need them.

Make 4 D3’s and 5 D4’s.

For the thumb I cut out 3 “9”s (Again, you may need more) and one of the thumb plates.

I cut down two of the three “9”s by taking off their lower wings. It didn’t look good when I stacked them so I would recommend you do the same.

Step 8: Spraypainting

Now it’s time to spray paint!
Arrange all your finger pieces on strips of masking tape that have their ends anchored to a piece of cardboard. You need to do this, otherwise when you go to paint the propellant will just blow the pieces all over the place. Lay it out on an area covered with newspaper along with your hand piece. Make sure you’re in a well ventilated area (wouldn’t want to get all high off the fumes lol) and spray everything down evenly.

Step 9: Arm Guard and More Spraypainting

Take your 2mm foam and trace the pattern for the arm guard onto it with a pencil. Then take your X-acto knife and cut it out. To get the design on the foam wrist guards, I would recommend placing the pattern back on top of your foam piece and gently running your knife down the lines so that it makes them in the foam. You can then make them deeper if you want to. Just be careful you don’t cut through the foam. Maybe a better idea would be to run your pencil down the lines of the pattern, therefore creating an indent in the foam that you can then carefully score using the knife? You’ll have to see what works for you. For myself, I just eyeballed it and free-handed the design with a pencil, then drug my blade across, with no pressure to score the foam.

Now that that is done, when your finger and hand pieces are dry, flip them all over and paint them along with the top of your arm guard. At this point it is very important that you keep all your D1’s together and not lose track of them as the paint is about to cover up any marks you made to distinguish them!

Congratulations, you’ve done all the tedious stuff!!!

Step 10: Gluing the Fingers

Once everything is dry, do a little shaping to your D3s and D4s. Using the ruler give your D4s a nice clean bend, making them into sharp claws. On the D3s just give them a soft bend so they wrap onto your finger.

Now get out your hot glue gun and gloves. Mine were originally black so I had to spray-paint them gray. Maybe you’ll be able to find a pair of gray gloves.

I used an old paint marker to stick in my glove and simulate a finger while I worked. You can use anything that is the right size for you. So stick the marker into the first finger you will work on, the pointer. Then take one of the D4s and squirt a line of hot glue on it’s bottom edge, as shown. Place it on the finger of the glove, with the tip of the gloves finger resting beneath the part where the D4 starts to angle and narrow to a point. Press it down and hold it tightly until it is dry; about 30 seconds. If it feels really hot, I’ve found blowing on it helps alleviate some of that. Then do the same with the D3, loading up it’s bottom edge and placing it. You can see the space I chose to give to each piece in the pictures. Repeat the gluing and placing with the D2’s and the D1 before moving on and doing the next finger.

Step 11: Gluing the Thumb Plates and Back Hand Piece

For the thumb, things get a little more awkward and hot. To accurately see where I needed to glue the D4 and all the thumb pieces, I had to wear the glove while I put them on. If your glove is thick or well insulated enough, like mine, the heat will be a nuisance but tolerable. If your gloves are thinner, please try to find another way to do this, I don’t want anyone burning themselves. HOT GLUE IS VERY HOT AND WILL BURN YOU!

Then just put a bead of hot glue on the bottom edge of the rest of the thumb pieces and place them until it looks like this. Use the 9 you left the wings on as the last one before the thumb plate.

This part is even more dangerous. Once again, to get it to work, I had to hot glue the hand piece while the glove was on my hand. I loaded up the hand piece with glue as quickly as possible, since the glue cools fast, and then stuck it onto my hand where it looked right. Be careful, as the brass fasteners will have absorbed the heat from the glue and will be very hot. Carefully hold the hand piece down on your hand until it is dry. It will get hot, but for me it was bearable.

Step 12: Gluing on the Arm Guard

Now take your arm guard and take a look at how it’s going to wrap onto your glove. I had to cut little notches in mine once I decided where I wanted it, so that it set close to the hand plate. Now load up with glue the parts of the arm guard that will be on your glove and place it on. I sadly don’t have any pictures of me doing this as it took the help of my photographer to do this. I recommend you get a friend too, it makes it easier to get it all held and placed right (remember, you only have one hand at this point). I did the first one without help and it didn’t line up so well.

Take your black straps or elastic and hot glue the ends on each side of your arm guard to keep it curled around your forearm.

And that’s it! You’ve created a gauntlet!! Now just repeat all the steps to make the other hand. ^.^’