Hammelltime: Saskatoon Halloween 2012

Hey, long time no blog! Haven't really been doing much lately, so since I finally did something worth mentioning it's time for an update on the "making of" process of this year's Halloween costume.

I started off wanting to make a giant Connect 4 game, but finding cardboard was proving difficult. Thankfully a coworker had a giant pile bamboo sitting in her office and after some thought I decided it would formed the base of my new costume.

I wanted to make a giant cage in which I'd be strapped inside of, looking like a captured werewolf. Jen dressed as hunter who'd captured me. Here's a few more photos of the process:

After gluing together all the sticks I bound every joint with hemp. It gave it a pretty cool look, but a bit more jungle-esque than intended.

So after that was all done I bought some plastic chains at Canadian Tire. Unfortunately the cage was just too big and unbalanced to truck around with all night. I must have spent a solid hour and half trying to get the costume to hold right, but it the end it had to be ditched. Cool idea, too difficult to execute.

So I switched gears and reworked the idea hours before going out for the night. First I made Jen a gun out of foam board and a black-painted bamboo stick. I was pretty proud of this one actually, it turned out really well and surprisingly sturdy.

I had ordered some fake werewolf nails in the mail that didn't arrive (along with several other costume parts I'd been awaiting) so I filed down some cheap-o plastic nails and painted them up.

I had an old dress shirt so Jen put a bullet wound in it and covered my face and chest with hair from a nappy wig. We used this stuff called Spirit Glue to attach it, which worked fantastic. It worked so well in fact that I still have glue all over me. It's impossible to get off. I took the chains from the cage and made a neat-o body restraint from them.

Here's Jen's costume. She bought a men's shirt and did some sewing to give it a more ladylike figure, sewed together a belt, made some scars out of make-up and wood glue, and accented it with a bandolier of bullets. Her costume turned out pretty mint as well!

Here I am looking award as possible with all the make-up on. You can't see it, but I also had a tail that I made from leftover hair, a shirt sleeve, and a coat hanger. It worked really well and actually bobbed around when I walked. Other that it riding straight up my bum whenever I say down, it was pretty much perfect.