Monday, July 2, 2012

After Twilight . . .


This weekend was Labyrinth of Jareth, and I had a pretty good time. As promised, the costume pics:)


I've been designing and building this costume for the last month, so it was pretty sweet to see it finally come together. It's a little modified for the evening's festivities (read: shorter), and I added my black petticoat. I just thought it would be fun to wear it in a way I never would at Faire.

The headpiece turned out looking pretty cool, though it is definitely not something I'd wear as a Fantastickal! It's made of gold paper, so while it is sturdier than I expected, still not terribly sturdy. But, it looked pretty:)


The ensemble wears pretty well. The ombre dyeing on the silk chemise came out really beautifully, and of course, nothing wears like silk. And the Indian overskirt is sparkly and rich and lovely. The bodice wasn't too terribly uncomfortable: it's royal dupioni boned in the front (the wings provide the boning in the back), and though I wore it from 5pm until 10pm, I didn't feel too constricted. The wings were a learning curve, but I didn't hit too many people with them, luckily; I even drove in them!


Doing airbrush makeup on myself is always an experience, so I thought I'd give the highlights:) This is me dressed and wigged, face bare, at 5pm. It's amazing how plain it looks without makeup!

My high-tech way of keeping makeup off the silk: papertowels:) Let the fun begin.


I'm not as young as I used to be, folks. If I want white makeup to get into the fine wrinkles around my eyes and mouth, I need to start with a white cream base in those areas. Yes, it looks pretty strange.


White base. This is how I know I'd never be the most popular Geisha in Gion.


Cosmic Blue. A little known fact: cosmic blue smells. It has a vaguely cookie-ish smell, if you baked cookies with liquid makeup:) I have also done the first coat of spray on my hair; I set the wig back on my head slightly and pinned the front of my hair into it, for a slightly smoother transition. The makeup was sprayed pretty thick on there, and was not a lot of fun to wash out at the end.


Blue and purple lowlights. The purple in the eyes did not turn out terribly well, but you have to remember: I am spraying over my own eyeballs, which means I can't actually see what I'm doing. I have to position the airbrush, close my eyes, and pray. I usually spray really lightly as a result, for fear of overdoing it.


Finished makeup. Yes, there were quite a few steps in between, but you can't expect me to show everything. And, there were several mishaps too. Both the dark blue and the yellow bottles overflowed/exploded at one point, and I had a few cleanup jobs. I did not take pictures of the times I had dark blue dots sprayed across my cheek, or the explosion of light yellow right in the center of my forehead; I figured I'd leave that to your imagination:) The process is not always smooth, but the result is always pretty damn cool.

I'll post on the ball tomorow, with some pictures of attendees. I didn't take a lot of pictures; I had my iPhone as my only camera, so a lot of the pictures are dark and grainy or blurry. Also, I was more interested in looking than in snapping:) But, there were a few I had to capture, so stay tuned . . .

2 comments:

Nicole said...

You look fantastic! I think you did a great job. :)

Laura Morrigan said...

Wow! Your costume is truly amazing! I want it so bad!