Alucard's Glasses

Alucard wears a distinctive pair of orange-tinted sunglasses throughout most of the anime. They are similar to the protective glasses worn by welders and steelworkers of the past in that they include shrouds on each side and perfectly round lenses.

Finding round frames wasn't too much of a problem--Harry Potter has made sure of that--but finding orange lenses to fit was another matter entirely. In the end, I settled for gold frames that I painted black and to which I added the shrouds by hand.

My Alucard's Glasses

Although I didn't make Alucard's glasses from scratch, I did at carry out some fairly serious modifications upon them. As the gold frames I found were cheaper than black ones, I had to carefully prep and paint the frames, not to mention build the shrouds for the sides.

Painting and prep work took a week or so, although that included time for each coat of paint to dry. My glasses aren't exact replicas--the screws are in the wrong places for one thing--but they look great nonetheless.

Materials List

• Round glasses frames with orange-tinted lenses
• Spray-on model paint primer
• Flat black spray paint
• Enamel topcoat, spray-on
• Small sheets of craft leather for the shrouds

Assembly & Construction

I found my frames from Eyeglass.com; I chose the Karma Round model due to their low price ($45) compared to other round frames I had found and also since Eyeglass.com stated they had orange-tinted lenses available.

The frames were unfortunately gold plated as black ones were more expensive, so I had to remove the lenses, disassemble the frames, and paint them black. I also found out the lenses are just slightly off perfectly round, but c'est la vie, and they look good enough.

Prep work involved a thorough sanding of the frames (bye, bye, 14-karat gold plate) followed by a good coat of model primer. I removed the nose and ear pads prior to painting.

I then applied two coats of black model spray paint. A word of advice: apply coats thinnly to avoid runs, drips, bulges, or other nasty effects, and please wait for each coat to completely dry (24-48 hours) before applying the next one. You'll be glad that you did.

Finally in terms of painting, I put on a couple of coats of clear enamel. Be careful not to go on too thick to avoid a frosty look! I carefully reassembled the frames to see how they looked once the paint and enamel had had a good three days to dry.

A tip for putting the ear pieces back on without scratching the paint: dip the plastic in very hot water for a few seconds to soften it up before sliding back onto the ends of the frame arms.

Finished Glasses

Contact Lenses for Vampire Eyes

I really wanted to duplicate the vampire-eyes effect and thus turned to the same sort of lenses a friend of mine had used in the past for an outstanding Darth Maul costume: Wild Eyes. At my annual checkup, I asked my doctor for a prescription and ordered a set of Wild Fire lenses, although I was split as to whether to go with those or all-red lenses.