The Halloween Costume Haul

Welcome to the post that redeems last year's Rocket Raccoon Atrocity. I was able to pull together not one, but two awesome costumes this year...

For work, I was Dana Scully. It was a pretty straightforward costume once I secured a pantsuit at the Berkeley Goodwill. I also discovered that pantsuits are not... really abundant these days. I got really lucky with my find (less than $20 for something that fit me decently). The only other major parts of the costume were the name badge and (once I realized that my faded red hair wouldn't really do) the wig. Since very little assemblage was required, there aren't any pictures of "IP Scully", except for this weirdo gem.

I tried using thread to restrain the pieces of hair that kept falling into my face.

Okay, so on to the final result!

Trying to look skeptical.

I bought glasses hoping to use them with the costume, but they proved to be extremely cheap-o and fell apart almost immediately. At least I was able to hold them together long enough to snap a couple pics.

Pantsuit in action!

For Ghost Ship, I finally put in the effort to complete the Leeloo costume that Kak made for me 5 or so years ago. Unfortunately, the suspenders were damaged in transit (their outer layer melted), so I had to pick them back into a state that was workable. Luckily, their inner layer was also orange, so the day was saved! I will say, though, that the lack of an outer layer made them extremely susceptible to scuffs... and now I have some pretty dirty suspenders that I need to figure out how to clean.

Anyway, let's move on to "IP Leeloo". The missing pieces of the costume were the pants, shirt, and (of course) multi-pass prop. The shirt was easiest; just a straightforward (there's that word again) amazon purchase (although I am a bit sad that I wasn't able to find one that was ribbed like in the movie). The multi-pass turned out to be the second easiest; I was able to make a phone-holding multi-pass thingy out of balsa wood. The result wasn't very accurate as far as the movie look and dimensions are concerned, but I loved that the idea actually worked.

Balsa wood multi-pass phone holder (with hot glue for the "gem" part).

The painted result.

The pants were the most difficult part of the costume. In the end, after a couple homemade attempts, I gave up and bought some pants on Etsy. Apparently, my skill level was just not high enough for this type of craft. :S

The very first attempt involved tan tights and a black fabric marker. I used by foam roller from work to try and stretch out the canvas, so to speak... but, even with masking tape as a template, there was too much bleeding through the lines. I tried to even them out using black puff paint, but it just looked too messy to me. Definitely not worthy of Kak's awesome suspenders.

So, I tried again, this time using a pair of gold pants and can of black fabric spray paint. Unfortunately, after emptying the entire can of spray paint, I realized that the fabric of the pants was resisting the paint. ;A;

To try and recover from the spray paint fail, I got out my black puff paint and cross-hatched the pants instead.

 But, when I removed the painter's tape template, I saw that the overzealous spraying had once again led to bleed throughs.

So, this is where the Etsy pants came into play. I supplied the seller with my own dimensions (measured as best as a could given my complete lack of tailoring knowledge). The pants arrived in a reasonable amount of time, but... as is the case with 90% of all pants that I try on... the butt fit perfectly at the expense of a waistband that was too wide. But, since the rest of the pants fit like a glove, I was resolved to find a way to make the waist area fit. Luckily, I had a black belt on hand that I was originally going to use with my homemade attempts... and my crafting skill is definitely high enough to do some simple sewing, so...

I pinned the belt to the pants...

And I stitched the two together at each pin point.

Super lucky success! Let's see the final result...

With the multi-pass phone holder.

Posing in Brandon's kitchen... @__@

My favorite picture of all: finding Ruby Rhod on our way into Ghost Ship.

Yes, my children, we are absolved. May the Rocket Raccoon Disaster of 2014 burn in hell. Leeloo and Scully have saved 2015 (well, at least the Halloween part of it).