THE WRAITH STUFF FOR OSCAR-NOMINATED COSTUMER, 'RINGS' VILLAINS POSED BIGGEST CHALLENGE.

Byline: Phillip Zonkel Staff Writer

Costume designer Ngila Dickson found that the real adventure of the ``Lord of the Rings'' trilogy was working behind the scenes.

She gave Frodo his frock, Gimli his garb and the elves their elegance, but Dickson says it was a Tolkien task to design the weathered, hooded cloaks for the ringwraiths.

``The ringwraith design task gave me a mental breakdown,'' says Dickson, 47, who, along with Richard Taylor, was nominated for an Oscar for her work on ``The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.'' ``How do you create something which seems to be all motion and no body?''

The film also garnered 10 additional nominations: adapted screenplay, art direction, directing, film editing, makeup, score, song, picture, sound and visual effects. Dickson also was nominated for ``The Last Samurai'' and previously earned a nod for ``The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.''

Chief servants of the dark Lord Sauron, the ringwraiths, or Nazgul, were once nine great kings of men. Then Sauron gave them nine rings of power. Blinded by their greed, they fell under Sauron's will and became neither dead nor living.

Bringing these fierce foes to life was a challenge worthy of the fellowship, but Dickson and her team knew how to address the challenge. They started at the beginning.

``These were men and they were kings, so I retrospectively designed it,'' says Dickson, holding court in a Beverly Hills hotel. ``In fact, there's a drawing somewhere of a king in a fully regal costume, and then I broke it down more and more and more into a ringwraith. There are vestiges of that original design as part of that costume.''

``I agree with Ngila,'' says conceptual designer John Howe, 46, who drew some of the original drawings of the ringwraiths. Howe's career also includes numerous drawings of the Nazgul for Tolkien calendars and book covers.

``The sort of de-evolution from a high king to a miserable servant and slave in the black land of Mordor is very good,'' he says. ``It adds huge depth to the raiment. That comes across well.

``These things are tall, skeletal, creepy, ethereal creatures but have all these layers of cloth on them,'' Howe says. ``It makes them much more substantial, not necessarily from a physical point of view, but from a historical point of view.''

Dickson went under the robes for the epic effort.

``Costumes are built from the inside out,'' Dickson says. ``We tried to find what was going to bring shape (to these creatures). We used all sorts of variations on humps and helmet pieces under the fabric to remove the sense of what a human shape is and to get the feeling that the head disappeared into the shoulders, which disappeared into the body.''

In the end, they used latex humps.

The only way for Dickson and company to get lifelike movement out of a costume was to pile it with layers and layers and layers of different silks.

``It goes from quite light layers to quite heavy woven (layers),'' she says. ``If the wind is blowing, one's going to be heavier, one will be lighter. Some will float away more than others.

``A ringwraith costume ended up being (164 feet) of fabric times 29 costumes that we made, and they weigh a ton,'' Dickson says.

``We had to dye a lot of them to get the color and then we put (regal) embroidery into them, which would make anybody laugh. You don't see it, but it's there. That was to hint at the residue of a king,'' she says.

``Then it was down to shredding (the fabric) and (covering it in) the mud and the blood and all these elements you add to them so that you have the final look on screen of this draped, huge, maniacal costume.''

Strapped outside those costumes, the ringwraiths carry swords fit for evil, desolate kings.

``It all comes down to trying to personify evil or wrongness in some physical manifestation, and keep it in the cultural bounds of Middle-earth,'' Howe says. ``You only have a certain number of elements with which to work, but drawing them out to the very limits of darkness and evil.

``I had a lot of fun with the weapons. We wanted to design things that were incredibly long and spiky without looking like something from a fantasy-weapons catalog. Something very deadly.''

In their pursuit of the Hobbits through Middle-earth, the Nazgul first pursue them on horseback. These hell steeds, with red eyes and all, are saddled with elaborate trappings and face masks covered in, among other things, barbed rings.

Alan Lee worked on the horse armor.

``We wanted the horses to feel as if they had been maddened, being driven all over the countryside by these ferocious creatures, and maltreated,'' Lee says.

``There were details like when you see the horses' foot stamping, you see those nails that have come up through the hoofs. Little ideas like that to make you feel sorry for the horses more than anything.''

Those horses went to a watery grave in ``Fellowship,'' but the ringwraiths resumed the chase in ``The Two Towers'' and more dramatically in ``Return of the King'' on fell beasts, giant snarling creatures with 70-foot wing spans.

``The fell beasts are one of my favorite critters. They're so creepy,'' says Howe, who drew the original conceptual drawings. ``I've often seen them depicted as sort of featherless buzzards or great fluffy chickens. I had an instinctive take on how they should look. Tolkien's description is sufficiently vague so that there's a lot of leeway to do what you want.

``They have back legs similar to an eagle but 25 times bigger. A very long tail. They have wings that are like hands,'' he says. ``But my favorite bit is the piece on the elbow that sticks down like a large spike. I've had so many flight experts tell me I couldn't do that because they wouldn't be able to fly,'' Howe laughs. ``This is a movie. I think we can get away with it.''

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(1 -- 2 -- color) ``The ringwraith design task gave me a mental breakdown. How do you create something which seems to be all motion and no body?'' says Ngila Dickson (inset), costume designer for the ``Lord of the Rings'' trilogy. ``We tried to find what was going to bring shape (to the ringwraiths).''