Eowyn's Wardrobe in Return of the King

I actually liked Éowyn's clothes much better in this film than "The Two Towers." They were more vibrant and colorful. Once again, I used the Lord of the Rings scene-maker to imitate Éowyn's costumes, though I once again ran into some difficulties while working on them www.dolldivine.com/hobbit-and-… (The game is still in the beta stage right now, but very close to being done). What I could make came out great . I used the Costumer's Guide LOTR page for the costumes: www.costumersguide.com/cr_lotr… and the Lord of the Rings Costume site www.alleycatscratch.com/lotr/H… for research.

(The costume descriptions go from left to right).

Costume 1: This is Éowyn's Victory Gown. We first see her in this when everyone's back in Edoras, celebrating the victory at Helm's Deep. This was a very pretty dress, and I wish we had seen more of it. There are so few clear pictures of the gown that a lot of fans had to piece together what it looked like. You can barely see it in the film, since most of the shots show Éowyn's head and shoulders as she presents a golden goblet to her uncle and Aragorn (getting Valhalla vibes, anyone?) I had to do some photo-shop work in my PC's paint program to make the bodice look right, but it turned out great . The doll's not quite accurate, but I'm satisfied at how it turned out.

Costume 2: This is another variant on the Victory Gown. I saw pictures of Éowyn wearing the blue under-gown with a matching coat trimmed in white fur, sleeping on a couch in the main hall. Guess she got partied out . There's another picture of Aragorn waking her and talking. It might be in the extended edition of the movie, it might not. I'll have to watch it again .

Costume 3: Fans call this Éowyn's Dark Beacon gown. You don't see her wear many dark outfits, so this is a rarity. She had it on when the beacon fires were lit to call the army of Rohan to come to Minas Tirith's aid. The outfit turned out pretty well, save for the belt. It's not quite accurate, but I'm just glad there was a girdle in the accessory section at all.

There was a riding costume Éowyn wore in the extended edition of ROTK, where she has a brief talk with Aragorn in the stables before the army rides out. I didn't duplicate it because it had to be the ugliest outfit I ever saw on her, and I probably wouldn't have been able to re-create it with the scene-maker if I tried. So I left it out.

Costume 4: This is probably Éowyn's most iconic outfit. She's often been called the Shieldmaiden of Rohan (another reference to Norse Mythology, with Valkyries and whatnot). Hence, people call this the Shieldmaiden Gown. It barely even shows up in "Return of the King," and not at all in "The Two Towers," and yet there are TONS and TONS of promotional pictures of Éowyn in this dress. They kept showing her wearing this, even in advertisements for TTT, despite the costume being absent in the 2nd film. In ROTK, you get to see a distance shot while the camera flies into Edoras, with our shield-maiden is standing on the front porch of the palace. She also wears a variant of it with a brown skirt the night before the Riders of Rohan head out to aid the White City. I couldn't do the brown skirt, but I definitely had no trouble with re-creating the white dress and dark brown corset top.

Much as I would have loved to do this, I couldn't re-create Éowyn's Dernhelm Armor. It was what she wore when disguised as a soldier in the big battle for the White City, and she looked awesome in it as well . It was especially epic when the Witch King of Angmar tells her that no man can defeat him, she pulls off her helmet and says "I am no man!" and kills him. Total win there . I did see a really well-done One Of A Kind doll on this one website called Dolls by Valkyrie (she's kind of neglected the site to the point where we can't even SEE this doll any more), but she did an amazing job on it.

Costume 5: In the extended Edition of ROTK, Aragorn finds Éowyn in the House of Healing, unconscious with her arm both shattered and diseased by the dark magic from the Witch King's mace. So from what I think I saw, he used elven healing magic to fix her arm and make it like new. Éowyn woke up later in a soft white nightgown (like you see above) in the House of Healing, and got up to see where Aragorn went. She puts on this pretty purple cloak with little crystals on it, which is why this costume was usually called the "Starry Mantle" outfit. I couldn't re-create it on the scene-maker, but the nightgown was easy. This extra scene was kind of sweet because it's where Éowyn meets Faramir and they bond a little bit. (I think they got married eventually, but I'm not sure).

Costume 6: This is my fave Éowyn costume . It's her Golden Coronation Gown, and looks sooo pretty. Normally I wouldn't recommend gold or yellow on anybody, but in this case it was just the right shade and worked well with her blond hair. The gown had a matching shoulder cloak, but once again, I couldn't duplicate it, so here's the gown without it. You see Éowyn and Faramir clapping and cheering for Aragorn after he's crowned king, and they exchange looks, which hints towards a possible later relationship (again, I still haven't read too much about Middle-Earth to know for sure).