tdp jailer cosplay part 1 of 3 - initial planning, design and coat
this was a very challenging and ambitious project for me - but i'd do anything for you this blorbo, okay? we've only a couple end-credits art and the 4x04 and 5x05 glimpses to go on, so i had a lot of freedom to be creative.
i used the costume pattern from simplicity # 8482 as a base and made... lots of modifications from there. just... miles and miles of sketches and pattern paper
for the color scheme, i decided to model it after kpp'ar and callum's character design (too thematically delicious not to) navy, black, and maroon, with brass and beige accents.
coat sewing progress:
faux suede and a jersey knit for the outside, and a coordinating fabric for the lining.
bottom of the coat - left pic is the lining (showing the wrong side; so many corners means so much fusible interfacing) and right pic is the outside. miles and miles of edge and topstitching:
top of the coat - lining and contrast detail:
yeah so fucking proud of myself for lining up all of these seams, only to have to cover them up with the bias tape.
key shape/crenellation detail on the bottom hem:
i struggled to find a color that matched with the stripes, so i ended up ironing out the bias tape and patching them together. it took three days to make and attach both of them ;_;
so many right angle corners. truly a nightmare project to sew. ilu sewing machine
looks fucking amazing though, if i do say so myself.
Thinking about the Jailer a while back and finally sat down to do the research that would let me articulate what exactly is going on with her design:
My brain initially glazed over the pattern at the edge of her cowl (and also on the lower edges of her coat, as we see in the other art) as standard gear or crenelation pattern that had parts frayed or worn down. In my defense, I think I was primarily thrown by the inclusion of the visible stitches on the cowl, which add a "worn out" appearance.
Interestingly, while I had thought there were more instances of crenelation motifs present in Harrow, Callum, and Ezran's designs, it actually only appears in the trim on Sarai's skirt:
Anyway, after looking more closely at the Jailer over time, I realized that... that's not accurate. The TDP artists aren't that lazy—those designs are geometric and uneven for a reason. Here's the reason:
It's a motif of (and here's where I had to do research) the bit of a warded key.
I found a really great post about faux-medieval locks and lockpicking vs. actual medieval locks and lockpicking (i.e. what's in ever Elder Scrolls game ever), but a quick summary: a ward or warded lock is a lock that is designed to allow only a specifically-patterned key to turn in the lock to open it. This is similar but subtly different from lever locks, which are still used in modern applications: lever locks use the pattern cut into the bit of the key to shift a series of levers into place that otherwise prevent the bolt from moving, similar to how pin tumbler locks raise a series of pins into alignment. Warded locks, on the other hand, don't actually have anything that prevents the bolt itself from being moved, but instead have a pattern of physical barriers inside the lock that prevent the key itself from being turned unless the pattern on the bit matches up with them. So you sometimes got stuff like this:
Anyway, most of the antique keys you see are probably for lever locks, since those were invented in 1778, are significantly more secure, and generally look a lot simpler in their bit shape.
The problem with the warded lock as a concept is that if you can get to the part that moves the bolt, there's nothing at all to stop you from moving it. Enter the skeleton key—which, contrary to popular belief, is not just any old-looking key. A skeleton key is capable of opening more than one lock, usually a warded lock, by essentially bypassing the wards. For example, the skeleton key on the right here would be able to open the warded locks for both keys on the left:
Something like this seems to be a pretty common skeleton key set for some kinds of modern padlocks:
you know what this fandom needs more of?? JAILER FANART. her and the orphan queen cared about each other bc i say so !!
(tdp just give me her canon color palette pls)
oh, and she hates aaravos <3
(shes stabbing him with the nova blade, its psrt of an au but i like it a lot 😙)
+ her in a suit just because....
srsly tho where r all my jailer lovers at!! (...i made up her personality, she appears for like two seconds in the whole show...will that stop me from drawing her? hell no !!!)
The Jailer: has to rip out the souls of people to control them to any degree of success, and even when their soul is 99% destroyed they still find a way to resist rather easy to break from his grasp.
Onyxia: put on a necklace and a lovely dress and men started killing each other over an invented issue.