Kitchen Costuming

Ugly witches, bed-sheeted ghosts, and ghoulish zombies are on the prowl again.  There is a chill in the air and…wait a minute, wasn’t it in the low nineties today approaching 100 degrees by this coming weekend?  It’s not Halloween?  Oh! I know!  There are lords and ladies, gypsies and pirates swinging swords and turkey legs. The Renaissance Festival is commencing!  But of course… now that I think of it… Ren faire just ended about a month ago.  Let’s see…the stormtroopers are out in force along with the X-men and Ghostbusters.  It must be Comicon! No…hmmm…we already did that… or, are we going to do that?  Now I know I saw Batman, Catwoman, Scarecrow, and the Joker.  I guess that means it could only be one thing…

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY

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AZspidey and friends are really trying to get some mileage out of their Halloween costumes this year. (continue reading…)

My Twitter friend, Sarah, likes to put together haunted attractions.  This year she would like to have some clowns that resemble the ones in the Chiodo Brothers production of Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  The film is a 1988 American comedy horror movie, made by The Chiodo Brothers ( www.chiodobros.com ). The film is about aliens (who look like clowns) that arrive on Earth to capture and harvest people in order to use them as sustenance…mmmm…yummy (More info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_Klowns_from_Outer_Space).

These clowns are pretty creepy, so I could see how they would work in a haunted attraction. Although I have been known to make a clown costume, it was never as scary as a killer clown.       

The closest I have come to a spooky costume was when I made Frank the Rabbit from the Donnie Darko movie (another cult classic) for AZspidey’s friend, Ron.

Of course the part I was sewing was the fluffy bunny body, which if worn separately from the mask, couldn’t scare a bunch of carrots (Hey, I live in a world around animators; of course carrots can be afraid. They can even scream!).  The mask was purchased online, but was not painted.  AZspidey completed the final touches on it for that special ‘don’t even think you’re gonna to make it home’ look.

How could Ron see (or pee) you may ask?  Let’s just say somehow he found a way!  See you in an another universe, Frank!

Ahoy, ye scurvy dogs, let’s face it, pirates have fascinated us for centuries.  Pirate costumes and accessories won’t be going away anytime soon with the anticipation of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 set to arrive sometime in 2012.

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to make a pirate costume for a friend, David, who had always wanted one.  Although I was responsible for the majority of the clothing, it was a very time consuming project.  Therefore, I thought it would be more fun to have David work on some of his own props.

As soon as The Halloween Express stores (www.halloweenexpress.com) were open we decided to scope out the various pirate pistols and swords. The sword was from Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean line of costume accessories.  It is about 32 inches long and has a really nice heavy plastic sheath.  Unfortunately, I don’t think it is still available for sale anywhere.  Hopefully it will make a return when the new movie is finished.

David bought a couple of pistols and quickly disassembled them to sand any imperfections in the molds.  After putting them back together, modeling putty (I think JB Weld might work better) was applied to fill cracks and holes that shouldn’t be there. With various latex paint mixtures and David’s talented eye for modeling replicas, he had some really nice looking prop pistols.

The sword, on the other hand, was a little more involved as it had a sheath cover that needed sewing.  That was left up to me.  I will cover the makin’ of the scabbard in the next post.

I put a link on my blog last week for the Arizona Ghostbusters and I really wanted to highlight them a little more than just that.  AZspidey, in-between gigs as The Joker or his version of Spiderman, was asked to join the Arizona Ghostbusters a few months ago.

This group is a fan based costume club, but what makes them really special is their spirit.  I am not talking ghostly spirit here, but charitable spirit like in doing community service work for many of the organizations helping children and families.  These guys are not paid for their services and spend countless hours of their own time attending events and collecting donations for many charities.  The Arizona Ghostbusters are committed to not only having Marshmallow Man-size fun, but to making a difference in the lives of many people.

You won’t need Ecto Goggles or a PKE Meter to find these guys, just go to www.arizonaghostbusters.com and look for their next upcoming event!  See them in California at San Diego Comicon 2009 in July!

How much could it cost if I were to try to make a costume from home?

How much a costume you make at home could cost quite a bit depending on what your costume is and whether you choose to take advantage of cost saving methods in building your costume. 

Fabric can probably be one of the biggest expenses you might have towards the garment, but it doesn’t have to be. Look for fabric remnant stores, shop the internet, and use coupons and sales at local retail stores.  When JoAnn’s Fabrics is offering forty to fifty percent off coupons weekly through either their stores or online, it is just plain foolish not to use them.  You can have them mailed to your house and emailed to you by signing up at www.joann.com or any JoAnn’s location.  The Sunday’s paper usually has a flyer with coupons for the week (coupons can be used for other things besides fabric). I know other retail stores have these kinds of savings, but in Phoenix we have lost a lot of our competing fabric stores.  Check the stores in your area. I find remnant stores to be a better value than retail because you can buy some fabric by weight instead of per yard.  The down side here is that you may not know what kind of fabric you are buying or how to clean it. Todd (AZspidey) and I bought over 6 yard of 60 inch wide material for about $16.00 for his purple joker coat.  Remnant stores also have sales.  That much fabric at a retail store would have cost us at least $60.00 without a coupon or a sale at JoAnn’s (if we could even find the type of fabric or color we were looking for).

Obviously a costume can cost as much or as little as you want to put into it.  The point here is that a great looking costume does not have to cost a fortune, be smart about buying the materials and do it yourself.  If you just can’t sew or can only make parts of the costume yourself, think about bartering for services when you don’t have the money. Buying clothes from a thrift store is a great way to jump start a project also.