Costuming for Nerds, Part 9
Aug. 11th, 2016 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilI love Halloween, but I don't usually venture much into the gruesome and macabre aspect of the holiday. I just like wearing elaborate costumes. Mark is of a similar mind, for the most part, but sometimes he really enjoys playing the part of something monstrous. So in 2011, we decided to compromise and let him be something beastly that I, a mad scientist, had created.
All I needed was a lab coat, goggles and a crazy wide-eyed look. The look was pretty easy, but I had ridiculous trouble finding the other components. Ironic, because my scientist and engineer sisters would have had an easy time of it. But I finally had to make do with a oversized white blazer from the thrift store and the safety glasses I'd bought for a racquetball class in college and never used again. Then, just throw a rope around my creature and tell him to heel whenever he growled at passers-by.
Mark's costume was mostly the make-up, which he had a lot of fun with. You can't tell from this picture, but he took an old dress shirt and tore up the sleeves. His body language was also a big component. It's awfully entertaining to do Halloween with a drama geek.
Then the kids' costumes, with a bonus appearance from their grandmother in a Frankenstein's monster mask.
Luke is an explorer, which we decided upon once we found that hat in a craft store. All he needed was matching brown pants and a shirt. (The wet splotches were from apple-bobbing, I think.) Ryan was happy to reuse Emma's elephant costume from a few years back. Emma's was the most challenging, as she wanted to be a kind of bird she'd made up called a "mankel." I sewed her a kind of poncho with wings, and we used a visor for the beak like Luke had for his penguin costume in 2007. The best part, for her, was explaining what a mankel was. It's great to see her following in our footsteps. :D
All I needed was a lab coat, goggles and a crazy wide-eyed look. The look was pretty easy, but I had ridiculous trouble finding the other components. Ironic, because my scientist and engineer sisters would have had an easy time of it. But I finally had to make do with a oversized white blazer from the thrift store and the safety glasses I'd bought for a racquetball class in college and never used again. Then, just throw a rope around my creature and tell him to heel whenever he growled at passers-by.
Mark's costume was mostly the make-up, which he had a lot of fun with. You can't tell from this picture, but he took an old dress shirt and tore up the sleeves. His body language was also a big component. It's awfully entertaining to do Halloween with a drama geek.
Then the kids' costumes, with a bonus appearance from their grandmother in a Frankenstein's monster mask.
Luke is an explorer, which we decided upon once we found that hat in a craft store. All he needed was matching brown pants and a shirt. (The wet splotches were from apple-bobbing, I think.) Ryan was happy to reuse Emma's elephant costume from a few years back. Emma's was the most challenging, as she wanted to be a kind of bird she'd made up called a "mankel." I sewed her a kind of poncho with wings, and we used a visor for the beak like Luke had for his penguin costume in 2007. The best part, for her, was explaining what a mankel was. It's great to see her following in our footsteps. :D
