Halloween 2011- Tron Jacket, Pirates, Zombies, and more!

I was fortunate this Halloween season to work on multiple costumes and props. While I was unable to wear all of them (all but 1) I had a lot of fun making them.

The first costume was a Tron themed costume. I based it off the rebellious programs that are seen talking to Zeus in Tron: Legacy. A quick trip to a thrift shop and an order for LE tape, along with some flea market finds made this costume possible.

A quick look at the EL tape (light tape) and the wiring.

 Each piece of tape had to be bent and taped over to give it the right shape for the Tron Jacket.

 A test of the lighting. It works! There are a few kinks in the wiring, but I plan on fixing those in the near future.

The completed jacket turned on.

The full outfit, complete with identity disk mounted on the back and baton.

The jacket lit up. My girlfriend's pirate costume was made using pirate costume parts I own and that she owns. Turned out pretty good.

Us at the USS Hornet's Halloween Dance.

We again dressed as zombies for the Academy of Science's Nightlife Halloween night. Here's our makeup. Again, I made the prosthetics and applied the makeup.

I was unable to wear this costume due to a family emergency. I made the mask using my skull bank as a template. It was made using plaster gauze and hand painted. I plan on wearing it to the next Day of the Dead Celebration in San Francisco.

A Halloween prop I made and a pumpkin I carved for Halloween.

Dia De Los Muertos Masks Photo Shoot

After months of mask making, I had the opportunity to have some great pictures taken of them. I would like to thank Meghan Hoban for taking the pictures and Nicole Martinez, Tristan Scheving, and Cody Harrah for modeling and helping me out with the photo shoot.

The larger white masks were made using a skull bank (see earlier post below) while the smaller ones are skull mask blanks purchased from Michaels.

My favorite picture of them all.

Again, thank you to my friends for their hard work.

Zombie Costumes

Back on August 31, San Jose held their 3rd annual zombie crawl, "Zombie-O-Rama." After some brainstorming, my friends and I began work on our costumes. In total, it took about two weeks to finish the costumes, which included work with liquid latex and custom prosthetics. Below are pictures of the work I did on the costumes.

Liquid latex was very useful. In order to make sections of rotted flesh and intestines, I dyed the latex using acrylic paint and stage blood.

In order to make the intestines, I painted multiple layers of liquid latex on a board covered in plastic wrap.

After about 5-6 layers the latex was thick enough to work with without it breaking.

 Using paper towels as the inside of the intestines, I began to wrap the latex onto the paper towels. The latex sticks to itself even after it is dry.

A finished intestine. I covered it with a thin layer of flour to keep the latex from sticking to itself while we worked with the intestines.

One idea I had was to make an exposed spine. Using cardboard, tape, fabric and liquid latex, I came up with this.

The spine was made to be flexible. If the person wearing it bent over, it bent with them.

Close-up of the spine.

For my zombie outfit, I wanted to have a hatchet sticking out of my back. This small axe is made of a paper towel roll, cardboard, and tape. It straps onto the wearer's back and sticks out through the clothing.

Here are some prosthetics I made and some makeup test runs.

These were made using a paper towel covered in colored latex. The teeth are made of cardboard, cotton balls and liquid latex.

Here are shots of the final costumes. I am very happy with the way they turned out. The exposed bone used on the jeans were part of a zombie costume that I owned. The patches of exposed flesh is fabric painted with latex and covered in fake blood.

A zombie press hat for my photographer friend.

Here are pictures of the zombie crawl. I am happy with the way the costumes turned out and I think I did a good job on my friends' makeup. The prosthetics turned out very good.

I want to thank Meghan Hoban for taking these pictures.

Overall I think the costumes and the Zombie Crawl were a big success. I am looking forward to the next zombie crawl. This was the first time I had used liquid latex. Now that I know how it works, there are a few things I would like to try out for the next event.