Fully Built: The Zombies

In a post like this, I always find it tricky to find a balance between providing a sufficiently good idea of the steps taken in building the costume and not losing people to inordinate details. It's tricky because the post attempts to synthesise the incremental steps taken over weeks and months (about two, usually) of hard work. Trying to exercise succinctness is challenging when you have one costume to outline; but this year there is double the workload to squeeze in. With that in mind, I'm going to try to keep text to a minimum on this one (and if I have skimped on anything, I'd be happy to elaborate in the comments if prompted).

Fully Built: Alien

After the success that 2007 brought it did not take long to decide what costume I would be donning in 2008; indeed the seeds were planted in my head while putting the finishing touches to Predator. It seemed logical (with a trace of obscenity) to succeed a Predator costume with its long-time, cross-franchise foe: the Xenomorph.

Fully Built: Predator

 

Continuing the theme of wishing I started this 5 years ago rather than playing catch up now, I present the chronology of my Predator costume from Halloween 2007. This was the first time I saw Halloween as a serious project, so I have a lot more photos of the production process than I did of Ash.

Fully Built: Ash

In an effort to not let the blog fade to obscurity before I begin next year's Halloween effort, I want to give a brief outline of how I made previous costumes and organise them into a neat index. So with that in mind, I will begin where the Halloween bug began - Halloween 2006.

The Emperor's New Torso

I've taken a break from the Ion Blaster, because I was becoming self-concious about not having started the body.

I decided to tackle the torso first (still figuring out the midriff and the lower body). To do this, I started by acquiring a large, flat cardboard box (below).

First Meaningful Progress

At last, progress to speak of! I've been working on Zurg's head over the last month, though it's been a bit slower than I would have liked. Using the same method as I have done for the last three years (i.e. wire and papier mache) I've finally gotten a frame together.

That Time of Year Again...

This is the first year I've really been indecisive about my costume idea. While last year commitments stopped me from getting a start on the costume until mid-September, I pretty much knew I wanted to be T-1000.

I began this year with an idea that had been floating around my mind from the previous Halloween; none other than the Mayor of Halloween Town himself, of The Nightmare Before Christmas fame. The film is an old favourite of mine, and who better to embody the spirit of Halloween? I immediately began to think of how I would construct him and nail his features; most notably his swivelling head, which rotates depending on his mood (see above, left).

My indecisiveness raised its head when I started playing Bioshock on the PC. I got sucked into the game (more addictive than a barrell of MSG) so naturally my mind started wandering to Bioshock-related costume ideas. Pretty soon I decided I wanted to be a Big Daddy. I mean not only was it a Bioshock costume; it also satisfied my usual criterion of being utterly ridiculous. Inspired by some amazing attempts by others, I was pretty sure this is what I wanted to be. My mind kept drifting back to the Mayor though; in addition to the fact that my girlfriend had decided to go as Nightmare's Sally. In the end I conceded that it was a better idea than Big Daddy, and got down to work. Huzzah, I had made a decision! I drew some concept sketches, mostly to figure out how I'd make myself as big around the waist as the plump Mayor.

As the summer went on though, I just didn't feel inspired to get started. The idea had lost some of its novelty on me, and I wasn't too excited by it. So, when my girlfriend asked if I'd consider going as Zurg from Toy Story 2 (we are both huge Pixar nuts) a little light bulb went off above my head. I had found my costume idea.

For the last few days I've just been figuring out how I'm going to go about doing the costume. I think it has the advantage of being very doable, while having the potential to be totally ridiculous. I think it ranks ahead of Ash and T-1000 in terms of ambition, but definitely behind my Alien and Predator reprisals in previous Halloweens. Updates to come as they happen.

My work so far...

I don't have a background in any sort of design or crafting. The only semblence of an artistic background is my knack for drawing, drilled into me from an early age by my hugely talented brother. A wider approach to art was taken when I pursued it as a secondary school subject, but my interest unfortunately faded (thanks in no small part to a teacher who seemed to constantly have it in for me). This particular hobby came about as a result of making my first Halloween costume in 2006.

I think most people go through three phases of Halloween enthusiasm. There's the obvious first stage, when we don witch and devil masks and go trick or treating. But inevitably we grow out of that as angsty teenagers, and Halloween becomes a non-event for a few years. This is until we hit that magical age of legal drinking, and start going to pubs and clubs. My favourite memory of Stage 1 was my first attempt at a homemade costume. It was a portrayal of Todd McFarlane's 'Spawn' of which I was a huge fan at the time (somewhat inappropriately!). On the one hand I'm disappointed that no photographic evidence remains of this; but on the other, it is probably a pale shadow of the glorious costume I've built up in my memory banks. Stage 2 was largely forgetful; save for that one year when two friends and I made characture masks of F1 drivers and went trick or treating (putting our knees in our shoes outside each door, in a vague attempt to convince people we were young enough to pull it off).

Stage 3 brings me to the beginning of this blog's content. It was October 2006, and I had just come of drinking age. When I realised, the week before Halloween, that going to a party would actually involve making a costume, it didn't take long to decide that I was going as my all-time favourite movie character: Ash Williams, of Evil Dead fame.

In 2006 Halloween was a Tuesday, and I believe it was the Thursday previous I started making the costume. The first step was a quick shopping trip, attempting to find 1) the right coloured shirt, and 2) a toy shotgun. After finding both, it was time for my first build.

It was a fairly rushed attempt; I was fairly happy with the outcome though, and very happy with the fanfare I received at the party (Freakscene in Cork has become the tradition).

In 2007, I decided to start earlier and be a bit more ambitious. I had well and truly caught the bug.

I've no idea what my thought process was that led me to thinking about Halloween in August, or how I came up with the idea; but I knew what I wanted to be: Predator.





This was a longer and more arduous process but I was delighted with the outcome, particularly because it landed me the prize for Best Costume at Freakscene.


No sooner had Halloween 2007 passed when I started thinking about its successor. This was only natural, because spending that long on Predator inevitably got me thinking about whether or not it was possible to do Alien.


I initially convinced myself I was crazy for even contemplating it, but seeing the spectacular work of others when I went searching online really inspired me. This, combined with procrastinating from studying in May (in my final college exams no less) resulted in a prototype Alien foot. After 5 months of working (culminating in having to stitch myself into the costume on Halloween day itself) I had done it. This was a group costume, with my friend Mark going as an amazing Power Loader. Together we scooped the prize for Best Costume, successfully defending my trophy.



I was to relinquish that title to Mark in 2009 (well, in principle; he actually didn't hear himself being announced as winner for his Discworld's 'Luggage' costume and it defaulted to somebody else). This year I had not been able to dedicate the same amount of time to my build as I had done for Alien and Predator, due to my research masters running throughout the summer. It was a pretty rushed job which started in mid-September, (a combination of words scuffed at by most people!). Keeping it in the movie-theme, I went as the undisputed greatest villain in film history: T1000.


Despite not winning I was happy with how it turned out (given that I was still painting on Halloween day itself). The fanfare wasn't as extensive, but I got a decent enough reception all the same.

That brings me to 2010. I'll be posting up updates as they come; I'm determined to dedicate more time to this year's build than last year's. I've not fully decided on a costume, because of issues that I have yet to work out.

I'll be posting up detailed accounts of how I created Alien and Predator in particular (I'll try to give a description of Ash and T1000 too, but lack pictures). I can only hope they are as informative and helpful to somebody as other costume blogs have been to me.