Geisha Girl, Age 8

I had this beautiful and heart-warming story about the creation of this costume but eeek I am just too busy with this year’s Halloween costume(s) so it’ll have to wait until later!

Edit: Alrighty – time to type! I was (am) a fan of The Mikado, and badly wanted to go as one of the characters. Initially I wanted to be Katisha, but her hairstyle was just a bit too much to rock. So Yum Yum it was! I remember the extensive planning my mom went through to make this costume; we went to the library and she checked out a bunch of clothing and costume books, she watched, paused and made notes about different sections of The Mikado movie, and somehow she made a geisha hairstyle out of an old witches wig (that had to be greatly altered).

I think I wore blueish-purple gloves when I went out at night. All of our Halloween costumes were made big enough to accompany snowsuits underneath, as most Halloweens in Ontario were cold and/or snowy.

Darth Vader, Age 7

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, before there was Star Wars I-III, digital re-mastery or the idea that you can show the same film in theatres again and again year after year, I loved Star Wars, and loved Darth Vader. I’ll still always love the original movies, where the main special effects were done with models and puppets and you see a final Rebel celebration on a moon of Endor (and not throughout the entire galaxy). When I dressed up as Darth in grade 2, none of the kids knew who I was, but all the grown-ups did. My uncle did a great job making my helmet. This costume was based on Vader from Star Wars IV, so the helmet eyes were slightly tinted red, as was seen in the movie (I think the helmet eyes always had a bit of a red tint, but it’s most noticeable in the lighting conditions in IV).

Skunk, Age 6

My beloved skunk costume, with its oh-so-fluffy tail. This was my costume for grade one – I remember our (fantastic) teacher dressed up as an old man and tried to fool us all, but…we figured it out (thanks to a lot of screaming and finger pointing).

Skeleton, Ages 4 and 5

Did I mention that the skeleton costume glowed in the dark? It glowed in the dark. (I never put on glow-in-the-dark makeup up, but I drew it this way, just for kicks). I remember being in kindergarten and being in the little kindergarten Halloween march around different classrooms – and in one class, one older, dressed as a pirate, pointed me out and said “Hey, lookit the skeleton! Cool!” …good times, good times.

Skeleton, Ages 4 and 5

One of my most awesome costumes, that was later revisited in life, and was anatomically correct (unlike the drawing you see here). My mom made every single one of my costumes, up until a few years ago, and she excelled at the skeleton get-ups, making sure all dem bones were accurate.

Witch, Age 3

When I was three I got to choose, for the first time, what my costume for Halloween would be. Apparently I was very enthusiastic about being a witch. Very enthusiastic.

My smile – which has plagued many-a-photo despite requests to ‘Kristin, be nice! – hasn’t changed much since, I just have better teeth now.

Pink Bunny, Age 2

October can’t help but be an awesome month. It’s the month of my wedding anniversary, my mom’s birthday, and some of the best holidays of the year, including Day of the Dead, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. There’s pumpkin pie, apple pie, turkey pie, apple cider, pumpkin carving, candy candy candy, and best of all, costumes.

In the spirit of this glorious month, I’ll be doing some quick cartoony self-portraits (scribbled in pencil, coloured quickly on the wacom) of my Halloween self through the years. Hopefully I can remember everything I was (not to mention what I/the costumes looked like)!

So here I am, age 2, as a pink bunny. I don’t remember this at all. I like to think that my parents dressed me as such because of their love for A Christmas Story.

Liara T'Soni HeadPiece 2.0

• To get thin edges for a headpiece, use a makeup sponge or a paintbrush to paint the edges around your ultracal cast. Paint one thin layer all along where your edge would be (wear the headpiece would be touching your skin). Let this layer dry BUT not set (so no more than 7 minutes) and repeat this process a few more times. You want the edges to be thin, but not so thin that it rips. You can see in this photo that there are tiny rips in one section, but I still had to trim this piece to fit my head, so it’s all good. Then after your final layer has dried (but not ‘set’) pour the latex into the rest of the mold and follow the same process as before. This time I only waited 20 minutes until I poured the latex out (and when I poured it out, I used a sponge to ‘scrap’ off the excess from the back of the neck to help keep it thin). A shorter wait time meant that I had a thinner headpiece (which was so much lighter!). I would have experimented I think with the time before…but if you read my comic, you know that my latex stage was a wee bit rushed.
• Try using a textured sponge for painting. Make sure you use a latex based paint, else you will get cracks! I mixed my paint to try to match my makeup colour and then after painting the headpiece with the paint, I dabbed some makeup along the edges of the headpiece. I did my best to blend the makeup in with the paint colour. Originally I would apply some makeup to my headpiece after putting it on, but I decided to do this ahead of time, to try to blend it in more. And then I will go about trying to match my makeup to the colour of the headpiece.
• When and if you decide to wear your Asari headpiece/costume to, say, a convention, and you are travelling to a location and need to bring all of your Asari getup with you…please, please TRIPLE CHECK that you have everything. Nothing is worse than preparing to get all decked out like Liara and, after carefully packing your headpiece and taking up precious luggage space with your Asari shoes… and gloves and stockings and liquid latex and sponges and cotton balls and spirit gum and baby powder and latex sprat… after doing all this and arriving at your destination, nothing is worse than discovering that you do not have two crucial things; blue makeup and contacts. Woe was me who experienced this last weekend – I had planned to wear my Liara T’Soni outfit again, after making new and improved gloves and a headpiece, but it was not to be. I swear this costume is cursed, as every time I have tried to wear since the VGL concert, unfortunate circumstances have prevented me from doing so. But I WILL wear it, again, someday, for something, I hope, in the future. And finally get decent pictures.

(a big thumbs up to a guy out there at PAX who said he liked my Asari ‘gettup’ – I was caught in the rain on the last day of PAX and one of my bags were soaked through so I had my Asari head lying upside down on a plastic bag along with various other items, letting them dry out. It felt really awesome to have someone recognize what the headpiece was, even without it being right-side up or with me wearing it and the rest of the costume. PAX proved again to be awesome in every way!)

…it feels like I planted little Asari headpiece seeds in a garden and have just harvested the crop.

Final Asari Headpiece and Friends

My my, don’t they look…pretty ugly, when they haven’t been cleaned or trimmed or painted or looking as if they were a crude sacrifice of rotting alien scalps torn from the dying heads of Asari…quite unpleasant indeed.

*ahem*

So, not including The First headpiece that was constructed, it took me three tries to get a satisfactory headpiece – one that is thin, light, strong and all in one piece (I had a wee bit of an accident with one headpiece as I became impatient and pulled the latex out of the mold before all the tentacles had completely dried). I am in the process of painting this final headpiece, which I’m still hemming and hawing about wearing to PAX. I think it will be the last time I wear this costume.

I’m not sure what to do with the other headpieces now. I will save them for the future and maybe paint them based on new (or returning?) characters in Mass Effect 2.