Posts tagged costume

“Just so you know, I can’t stick you while you’re tootsie rolling.”

Yesterday mschilepepper came over and cut me out of my clothes.

After wrapping me in nearly 120 yards of duct tape, that is, to make a me-shaped dress form in order to avoid the sort of last-minute storm of cursing that tends to happen when I sew things according to a pattern and then discover it does not fit me in the slightest because the pattern was designed with a baby elephant in mind. Also, since I plan on doing a lot more free-form work on my costume this year, it will especially help to have a three-dimensional model of myself to pin things to, and then yell at, and then punch. It’s not QUITE right, I put some of my clothes on it and the waist on the dummy is a bit bigger, but it should absolutely suffice for my costume-making purposes this year. And for the cost of one t-shirt, two rolls of duct tape, a pile of little nickels, and a ‘thank you’ dinner for a friend who had to handle my ass, it was a damn good deal, too!

It is more than a little disconcerting to have a replica of my torso impaled on a post hanging out in my living room.

Also, yes, this does mean I have a stick up my ass.

Red, White, & Dead

zombie On Friday, I met up with poetrix618 and amazoni to apply varying levels of gore to our faces for the record-breaking zombie gathering. Both Anne and Tonya made special shirts to wear–Anne’s said “I digeat geeks”, and Tonya’s was a play on the Subway ‘eat fresh’ ads: 6768_99530448939_504738939_2156330_6768098_n 6768_99530453939_504738939_2156331_5589014_n   Me? I decided I’d just go for disgusting makeup. We had a bit of fun staggering around Anne’s neighborhood, flinging blood on ourselves and on the ground near the mailbox, which is an appropriate location for any massacre, frankly. After this, we all loaded into Tonya’s car, realized we’d need to stop to buy some water, scared the crap out of some people in a Bartell’s, got on the highway in the wrong direction, and then finally started making our way to Fremont. As we got into the city, I rolled down my window and proceeded to groan at every person, car, and bicyclist we passed, and did not get ONE REACTION. NOT ONE. Maybe zombies ARE played out. 6768_99530498939_504738939_2156339_4567793_n We waited in line to register to count toward the Guinness total for about an hour, behind the most annoying child on earth and his equally annoying mother. The kid was way into the moaning thing, but it was more of the “mooooooooooooom I’m sooooooooooooooo thirsty” interspersed with loud shouty moans and his mom was dressed up like some sort of goth pirate, which, as of the last time I checked, was not the theme. This, combined with the heat, combined with the blinding sunshine and lack of glasses hence lack of focusing ability, helped reveal my true, unpleasantly dictatorial nature. I pantomimed kicking the child in the back of the head. I loudly dropped F-bombs. I noticed that Anne’s shirt was too clean and demanded she lay on the ground and do a dirt angel. NOW. NOW!! What choice did she have but to comply? 6768_99530508939_504738939_2156340_7930687_n After we finally got registered, we were given nametags. For the rest of the day, I was to be known as Moses, or at least my right boob was to be known as Moses, anyway. I, for my part, perhaps derived a bit too much pleasure from shouting “LET MY ZOMBIES GO!”. Repeatedly. 6768_99530528939_504738939_2156344_3386072_n Next, we had our photo taken by the fine folks at NightZero, and though they have not yet processed our photos, I will post it when they do. To repay them, I did my very best to try to knock down their set. As it turns out, I shouldn’t probably hang my body weight off of anything. Who knew? *edit*Oh hey, six months later, I am finally adding in the NightZero picture! 4225430017_c5a614ba00_o   6768_99530548939_504738939_2156346_6754928_n Now, this might be my true, unpleasant nature revealing itself again, but these girls? I HATE THEM. This is a zombie walk, not yet another opportunity for you to try to look sexy. Ohhhhhh loook, I’m a faerieieiey wandering amongst the zombies and I bet they all think I look so totally delicious that maybe by the end of the day they’ll make me a faerieieiey zombaiey  but if not then I still look, like, so totally cute because I need validation and whoa I just went off on a tangent there.  WE ARE NOT ATTEMPTING FOR THE WORLD RECORD IN FAIRIES, LADIES. Muttering loudly, I made my way over to the parking lot across the street to wait for the next wave of zombie walking. 6768_99530523939_504738939_2156343_1027595_n  6768_99530538939_504738939_2156345_7323580_n   6768_99530568939_504738939_2156350_46496_n 6768_99530573939_504738939_2156351_678284_n 6768_99530578939_504738939_2156352_8145832_n 6768_99530583939_504738939_2156353_6770302_n Look, ma, I’m gross!   6768_99530598939_504738939_2156356_7969742_n 6768_99530613939_504738939_2156359_5015847_n 6768_99530628939_504738939_2156361_6362122_n 6768_99530633939_504738939_2156362_4236112_n 6768_99530643939_504738939_2156363_6178836_n     We started the walk, and the poor sap driving this car picked the wrong time to be law-abiding and stop at the red. His car got swarmed, zombies were reaching in through his windows, crawling up his hood, and getting blood everywhere.   The zombies were all about general mayhem. We reached through patio gates at patrons trying to peacefully eat meals. Fake blood was smeared all over the window of the business having the ‘White Sale’. My favorite tactic was pressing my face up against the window until someone inside noticed me. At every intersection when we swarmed into the street, cars would get mobbed. In one, there was an unfortunate girl in the back seat who was clearly terrified, getting down onto the floor, covering her eyes, willing everyone to go away.     Anne, Tonya and I ended up getting separated and met at our previously agreed-upon ‘Zombie Lost & Found’. We were there when they started up another round of zombie walking, and this time I focused on photographing the hordes.   6768_99530653939_504738939_2156364_1963939_n 6768_99530658939_504738939_2156365_6461309_n 6768_99530678939_504738939_2156369_7868842_n 6768_99530683939_504738939_2156370_1520329_n 6768_99530688939_504738939_2156371_6742444_n 6768_99530703939_504738939_2156374_1728249_n 6768_99530713939_504738939_2156376_6870595_n 6768_99530728939_504738939_2156379_5447568_n 6768_99530753939_504738939_2156382_460458_n 6768_99530763939_504738939_2156384_646440_n 6768_99530768939_504738939_2156385_8228041_n 6768_99530773939_504738939_2156386_6239335_n 6768_99530778939_504738939_2156387_2433981_n 6768_99530788939_504738939_2156389_1962271_n This guy’s costume was completely awesome. He had a pole attached to his back, which dangled a brain in front of him, which not only motivated him to keep moving, but also caused zombies to swarm him. 6768_99530798939_504738939_2156391_3638787_n 6768_99530803939_504738939_2156392_5354010_n 6768_99530793939_504738939_2156390_5555246_n The King might be an undead zombie, but it’s all good. So am I. Here, you can see me surreptitiously trying to lick him. After this, we all decided we were pretty people-d out, and didn’t want to stick around for Shawn of the Dead. We ended up going to Pegasus in full makeup to have dinner–the language barrier was perhaps a bit too much for the waitress, who decided she did not want to spend a single second longer with us than she absolutely had to. I discovered that it’s difficult to eat when you’ve got a bunch of latex around your mouth. And then…things got silly. 6768_99530808939_504738939_2156393_2836985_n I know you must all want to make out with me now. Not all at once, please.

Ursula: A Halloween Costume Restrospective

ursula

I knew from the start that this costume would be a challenge–less of a challenge than I knew would be inherent in my first idea, the Borg Queen, but a challenge nonetheless. Missing eight days in the middle of the month was a much larger setback than anticipated, and in the feverish last-minute final construction, I swore more than I ever have in my entire life. Here’s what happened, and what went wrong:

I constructed the costume from pretty pretty pretty thin cheap fabric, which I intended to coat in liquid latex in order to give the whole thing a shiny, wet sea-creature look, and save an asston of money in the process by not buying the shiny-wet-look-10x-the-money-per-yard fabric in the first place. Until it was coated in the latex, I couldn’t sew the complex pieces together to get any idea of what the first fitting would be like. This turned out to be one of the biggest problems–when I finally got everything together, the top bit, by nature of the strapless costume design, had to be quite tight in order to keep from falling down and exposing myself to everyone. To this very moment, I would swear to you that I made it (with a pattern, no less!) to my measurements, but when I put it on, it was a goddamned tent. You can bet *that* was a moment for some expletives.

Liquid latex is blended with ammonia to keep it from solidifying in the container, so I took the first piece out onto my back porch in order to have plenty of fresh air to breathe; unfortunately, since I could only work on the costume in the evenings, it was too cool out for the latex to cure. With my rambunctious dog, my only other option for latex was to lay dropcloths in my room and shut the door behind me, lest he track latex everywhere or shake fur into the mixture. This meant that every time I painted latex onto cloth, my lungs were burning, and it STILL took hours to cure, much, much longer than anticipated, so I could only work on small sections of the costume at a time, and everything had to be picked up and moved so I could actually use the room to sleep in, thus the window of time I could actually work on the costume was quite small.

3009194634_16fd6860b0

Until it was entirely coated in latex, I couldn’t buff anything out with the silicone compound, so everything was sticking to itself in a most horrific manner. This was a HUGE problem. Because I don’t have a dedicated project studio and the costume bits needed to be moved around to accomodate actually LIVING in my home, no matter how careful I was, pieces would crease or fold in on themselves and one of two things would happen: Either the latex would mar when I pulled it apart, or I absolutely could not pull it apart, no matter how much I tried. This was extremely frustrating because I wanted the whole thing to look very smooth, and as creased and bunched as it got, particularly around the tops of the tentacles, it made the waistline look rotten.

I had wanted to arrange the tentacle skirt in such a way that my legs appeared to be the front two tentacles, instead of being awkward legs in the middle of a bunch of tentacles. This idea involved the procurement of super-shiny leggings from American Apparel. As it turns out, the fine folks at American Apparel have decided people my size are too fat to wear their shiny leggings, and that my money is not as good as money spent by people a size slimmer. So here’s a great big fuck you to American Apparel! For a moment, I thought I’d try it with black pantyhose, but the tentacles were cut very high in anticipation of full-coverage leggings, and had I worn pantyhose, there would currently be pictures of my junk on the internet. I know my friends love me, but probably not enough to have to look at my barely-covered ass. So again, at the very last minute, I had to change things up and I wore black pants underneath my skirt.

The tentacles were a nightmare. I’d sewn rebar tie wire to the backside, but sewing was not enough to keep the wire in place, so I had to glue the wire on with more liquid latex, which added multiple days of work that I could ill-afford. Once the topside was entirely coated in latex, then I sewed on the shiny purple undersides, and when I went to stuff the tentacles, I learned why I shouldn’t have skimped on fabric–a good portion of the seams popped immediately, and the purple fabric developed runs all over. !*^&#$ As an additional frustration, once I’d stuffed the tentacles tightly enough for the latex tops to be smooth, they were too heavy and full to be bendable, so all of the time I’d spent on wire-work was wasted.

3008381731_7e2fae9c0b

Once everything was coated in latex, my sewing machine refused to work on it any more. It wouldn’t feed anything through, so the majority of everything at the end was sewn with a giant needle and cursing that would make a sailor blush.

I determined early that I would not be able to color my skin purple without an assistant and an airbrush, so that was right out. I determined much too late (after I’d already ratted and styled my hair) that the white spray does NOT make my dark hair look white, but instead makes it look old and grey. This was, of course, also after I had spent a loooooong time doing elaborate eye makeup, so I ended up having to do a really awkward wash-out hunched under the bathtub faucet. (Of course I had to do elaborate eye makeup–Ursula’s character was based on Glenn Milstead, better known as Divine, whom I ADORE.) Pictures don’t even begin to capture it, but it was a dark, dark base and crease with reflective teal glitter pressed into the center of the lid, so it looked like flashing fish-scales when I blinked.

370_34466168939_9810_n

The trident I made by melting and shaping a plastic pitchfork over a candle to give it the proper shape and then spraypainting it gold. It’s all right as far as a prop goes, but it’s nowhere near on the level of my Wonka cane, which I was particularly proud of last year.

Here’s the thing, though: For all of the problems, people REALLY responded to this costume. Everyone who saw it recognized it, even with the fundamental changes I’d had to make in terms of skin and hair color. More people recognized this costume than recognized Willy Wonka, which I felt was FAR more screen-accurate. I hesitate to call this costume a very successful one, but I would say that I learned more in constructing this one than I have in any previous costuming attempt, which is always the goal.

Other things I learned:

*Having a skirt made of giant, floor length, thick tentacles makes it awfully difficult to sit down.

*Having a skirt made of giant, floor length, thick tentacles makes it an adventure to drive, with half of them shoved back between the driver & passenger seats, and half of them stacked up and crammed into the narrow gap between the driver’s seat and the door frame; it’s like being hugged to death by tentacles.

*When making a costume in which it’s difficult to get into and out of the car, it’s really much smarter to buy gas EARLIER in the day instead of struggling with it in front of people.

*If you’re wearing a skirt made of giant, floor length, thick tentacles, expect people to treat you like you’re wearing a skirt full of penises and act accordingly.

356_34465593939_4157_n I’m not sure what this picture says about Captain Hammer.

*Four am karaoke is really the best way to end any Halloween party.

2997963627_5eb0752688

What were YOU for Halloween? I DEMAND PICTURES.