Teslacon Teaser

Just got back from Teslacon and am very tired and VERY behind in my studies, but I had a blast! My steampunk sister L and I had a semi-professional photo taken of us in our ballgowns, so I will leave you with that until I can do a full write up.

Halloween 2012

 This year for Halloween I decided to update/revamp my Effie Trinket costume. I managed a pretty good last minute interpretation for when the movie came out, but I really wanted to improve the look and have sometime really fun for medical school.

I started with the wig: I sewed together two different blonde wigs and pinning/curling the random curls to cover up the seam. I found some purple hair spray at Meijers and haphazardly covered the wig - in the movies, Elizabeth Bank's wigs are never fully colored.

I went to Joanne's and bought a bunch of fake flowers, feathers, and the massive butterfly. Most of them already had a pin or clip back, so I just hot glued either safety pins or bobby pins to the few that didn't.

Effie's makeup is always the most fun. To start, I use my palest, heaviest foundation to get a really homogeneous base that juuust borders on weirdly pale. I used this on my eyebrows too - they're naturally black, so they would have looked funny with the blonde wig. I also covered my lips, so I could put the dark lipstick on in a heart shape, rather than my full lips. I broke out all of my pink eyeshadow that I never use and just coated it on, plus some eyeliner.

I was really geeked about the false eyelashes I found at the Icing! They were a little heavier than what I'm used to, but the effect was grand.

For the full costume, I raided goodwill. I found the perfect jacket by chance (look at that crazy floral pattern!), and then found an obnoxiously patterned button down shirt to match. The corset, skirt, and tights I owned. The skirt is actually an old dress that I wore to a wedding once, wasn't too fond of, and hacked off the top to make a rather fun pencil skirt. I added some more fake flowers to the lapel and boom! Effie Trinket.

I had a lot of fun both at school and later handing out candy to trick or treaters. The best part of the day was wearing all this under my lab coat for anatomy - school doesn't stop just for Halloween! While I think medical school would be too squelchy for Effie Trinket, I think she would appreciate how well a fake butterfly looks with a long white lab coat ;)

Lament of the Masked Physician

My freshman year of college I was part of a program called Medical Scholars. At the end of the year, we had to create a presentation that focused on how art could make us a better doctor. I wrote and performed a poem titled "The Lament of the Masked Physician", which looked at all the "masks" a doctor could hide behind: cold scientist, "evil" researcher, god-like creature, superhero, etc. These are the photos I had taken afterwards. 

(photos courtesy of T. Benjamin)

Okay, I cheated a bit. The narrator's mask was an old mask I made for junior prom. 

Doctor as mad scientist. Look at me, I'm mixing water!

Doctor as god-like creature. 

Doctor as super hero. 

Fake Tattoos

A few years ago I was in a show called Talking With (by Jane Martin), which is comprised of a series of female monologues. One of the characters ends up getting a tattoo for every important person or event in her life. Since obviously we couldn't make M go out and get 20 or so tattoos, and since they were much to specific to simply use store bought ones, I ended up drawing them on her. 

All of the tattoos pictured were created using sharpie markers and rubbing alcohol. If you draw simply outlines of color and use rubbing alcohol on a Q-tip to blend, the result is pretty realistic. They also lasted almost an entire week afterwards!

Bird in flight. Copied from a google seearch image. 

Lily. My own design. 

Scythe. My own design. 

Water serpent. Copied from a google search image. 

Orchid. My own design. 

This tattoo was not mentioned in the play, but I designed tattoos for each of the other women in the show. S played "Lamps" and "The Patchwork Girl", so this is her tattoo. My own design. 

Scylla and Charybdis. My own designs. 

Star Trek Halloween Costume

So, back in the days of my living in the dorm, I owned a very sad little sewing machine and a whole lot of crazy ideas. My sophomore year Halloween, I not only was going to make my own costume, I was going to make two costumes for myself (Star Trek Redshirt and the original Silk Spectre from the graphic novel Watchmen), and more costumes for my roommates. Hence the craziness, and perhaps poor workmanship. But at any rate, I was not naked, the costume did not fall off, and everyone knew who I was. Success?!

I started with gorgeous red fabric, amazingly on sale at Joanne's. I was most impressed with the scale pattern, which matched the fabric closely enough for me to the fabric from the original TV series.  

I sewed a rough tunic, and then cut a deep V for the neck piece. Research showed the point of the V being off center, which is why it looks a bit funky in this photo. Also, yay dorm room bathroom!

Next came the cowl. I pretty much just hacked apart an old black cami of mine (broke college student, remember), so it would be soft and stretchy. Look at how long the sleeves are! I guess that's what I get for not following a pattern. 

Completed! I hot-glued ribbon trim on the shortened sleeves, and made the Star Trek patch  by gluing cut pieces of felt on top of each other. The dress was a little short for my comfort, but matched the shortness of the TV series, so I cheated a bit and wore black leggings underneath (not pictured). All in all, it was pretty darn comfy, and a fun Halloween party :)

Pride, Prejudice, & Zombies

Every year around Halloween, the Lansing Schuler's Bookstore puts on a fabulous Zombie Party. This year, I decided to go as the cover from Pride, Prejudice,and Zombies. 

Close up of makeup - not too shabby for a $3 kit at Meijer. I was featured in the State News and won 6th place overall. Photo courtesy of Angeli Wright, State News.

Applying blood to the dress. In hindsight, I would have made my own blood - cheapo costume blood from Joanne's just didn't give the darkness I wanted. 

I made the base dress from a couple of old t-shirts - I cut out a square neckline in one, and sewed together the "body" of a few others to make a skirt. I draped chiffon over these and sewed on some lace. It's actually a two part dress - the skirt portion ties on like a very large apron.

Posing with the cover of the book. Whee dorm room!

Considering I made this in about a day and a half, I'm pretty happy with the results. Hindsight being 20/20, I would have done better makeup, used better blood, and oh, maybe used a pattern to make the dress instead of fudging it, but as you can see, I made a pretty good attempt at the cover. People knew who I was, and that's all that mattered. :)