Worst Costume Experiences?

[RevChumley]

I'd have to say my worst was my first Con costume (I had done other Halloween costumes for years). I was a huge Farscape fan and it was still on the air so I had the brilliant idea to make my first ever con costume Scorpius. I was covered head to toe in latex and pleather and the only exposed skin I had was my eyelids and lips. I was inexperienced enough not to make the cowl removable so I was glued into the thing.

Did I mention it was for Dragoncon and it was 90 degrees for most of the day? I ended up with severe dehydration and to top it off my shoes were 1 size to small and I lost a toenail from walking around all weekend. I've since wised up on costume design, while some might be uncomfortable or a little warm it will never compare to this torture device.

628farscapeB by metaflibble, on Flickr

 

[joshvanrad]

Well, for a convention I dressed up as Ramona from Scott Pilgrim and had this huuuge hammer... The convention was so packed that I ended up hitting everybody's head with the hammer xD! I was trying my best not to though xD

That sounds like other peoples' worst costume experiences... not so much your worst experience lol

 

[EmmaInCandyland]

That sounds like other peoples' worst costume experiences... not so much your worst experience lol

Well it was mine too, believe me T-T

 

[Shmwe Shmwe]

Haven't conned yet but I go all out halloween. On a night out part of my costume (which I make what I consider "con quality") was a pair of shoulder length latex gloves. They were about 2 sizes to small and required a ton of baby powder to get on, so for the entire night I had no choice but to keep them on. By the time I took them off the pressure and friction on the elbows had left a bunch cuts, which took weeks to heal

 

[indianabric]

Freshman year of highschool, I was going as Begins style Batman, and I had a huge suit made of stuff in the house like sweatpants, a sweatshirt, an asston of duct tape, and foam for the chest armor. During October, the school has its spirit week, and that year, one day was superhero day. To my surprise, there were more Batmans than any other hero. However, I had the only decent looking suit. I was in the suit the whole day, getting hot from the sweatpants and shirt, and some teachers and security didn't let me wear the cowl, so I awkwardly had my eyes blacked out without the cowl. It was worth it though, when I got my costume prominently displayed in the yearbook.

A great moment in the costume was when I was waiting for the bus after school near the gas station where there's always a bunch of students. A few kids were in passing cars looking speechless, and a group of guys came up to me and saw my armor and asked if they could punch me in the chest. Knowing how thick the padding was, I said yes. The guy punched it, and it absorbed most of the shock, to his surprise. Calmly, I stood up and said "Alright. My turn" in my best Bale voice, and threw my arm back as I watched them all freak out and run away.

 

[indianabric]

That summer, my block had a block party, so I dressed in my updated version of the suit with a big motocross armor jacket. There were many, many annoying children, one of which was determined to see my face. The heat was getting to me, as I was wearing a batman hoodie underneath the armor and cowl. I spent a lot of time running, so the heat was getting to me. By the end of the night, because of those damn kids, I had my grappling hook broken, my belt was falling apart, the velcro on my cape was lost, and I had been punched in a part of my back where it was NOT padded. It was fun pissing off the kids who tried to see my face, because once they finally managed to pull off the cowl, they were surprised to see the batman hoodie underneath. And underneath that, a domino mask!
This summer, I hope to have some backup with me.

 

[indianabric]

And then there was the time I dressed as Captain America at a friend's 4th of July party, and I dared him to shoot bottle rockets at me while i deflected them with the shield.


You can see where this is going.

 

[Nixon]

I went to a Halloween party a few years back as Doc Ock with 4 large foam tentacles over a wire armature so they kept their shape. Unfortunately, the bottom two tentacles were at arse level. Bumped into a girl with one of the claws and got slapped for "groping her ass".

 

[irononreverse]

That is genius! *hurriedly builds doc ock costume*

 

[priestrorschach]

2 outfits had nasty issues with.
first one was a Rorschach outfit. i did not make the eye slits for the mask large(seeing it was a moving mask). so i had a very very narrow view and flat dress shoes and almost get my self killed going down the stair with it on.
second one is with monstermask halo outfit. where first the harness system was not working and had to hot glue myself into it(all friends bailed on helping me to get this on)last minute fix .
so i was stuck in out fit for 4 hours . top it off the bottom part of harness slip out and bottom right corner of chest piece was hitting my rib cage for those 4 hours. was living hell for me. could not breath correctly for that time

 

[cborchardt82]

Made a custom riddler jacket for my son. I sewed a wool green coat, painted on a good 25 question marks and one giant one by hand, each a couple of layers thick. We were on our way to the convention and he changed into his costume at a truck stop 20 minutes away from it. I started using spirit gum to apply his latex eyemask and I was so focused I didn't realize I was tilting the spirit gum bottle. It was a good sized bottle too and bloop bloop bloop it pours down the front of his green jacket. I only noticed because it started to pour on my fingers. I had no way to get it out before it became super sticky, so he had to go without it we were so bummed.

btw if anyone knows how to get spirit gum out of fabric let me know lol

 

[indianabric]

Made a custom riddler jacket for my son. I sewed a wool green coat, painted on a good 25 question marks and one giant one by hand, each a couple of layers thick. We were on our way to the convention and he changed into his costume at a truck stop 20 minutes away from it. I started using spirit gum to apply his latex eyemask and I was so focused I didn't realize I was tilting the spirit gum bottle. It was a good sized bottle too and bloop bloop bloop it pours down the front of his green jacket. I only noticed because it started to pour on my fingers. I had no way to get it out before it became super sticky, so he had to go without it we were so bummed.

btw if anyone knows how to get spirit gum out of fabric let me know lol

I had forgotten about a similar accident, because when I was going to the zombie walk as Evil Ash, I used spirit gum on my face and brought the small bottle with me in my shirt pocket. On the way back, I felt my shirt stucking to my chest, and started smelling the spirit gum. By the time I realized what happened, it was too late. I didn't screw the cap back onto the bottle all the way, and it was leaking into my shirt pocket. I threw out the bottle, and luckily the spirit gum stayed in the pocket region in a sticky puddle.

 

[Thodin]

I was trundling at Ottawa Comicon 2014 in my cardboard Dalek Simon and a wire tape decided to fall onto my cool tripod engine and melted. Being in a confined space the melted wire tape fumes got to me and I had to lift off my dome very quickly...man the smell was bad...cardboard and fire not good..

 

[evilchiken469]

My worst ever was my optimus prime fall of cybertron costume the thing was an all around pain but the worst part was the helmet. I put so much work into the thing and forgot to even try it on after i resined and fibre glassed it then on Halloween i realized that the thing didn't fit any more. So i had to desperately file it out so it would just barely fit my head. wearing ti was ungodly painful it was so heavy from all the extra bondo i put on it i built so much with bondo, but not only that in my rush to get the thing done i didnt really sand down the fibreglass inside the helmet so the thing was tight, heavy and butchering my ace every second i wore it. On top of that the strapping was not the greatest so i was falling apart as well. So i decided for my local comic expo i was going to cast the helmet so it would fit better and be lighter. I had so much bondo on the thing it was atleast 10% smaller on the inside than the outside so i figured this was the perfect solution. after dropping $400 on supplies for making the mold and spending a week working on it the mold didnt work at all it wouldnt hold together and with my inexperience i cut the jacket mold the wrong way and the entire thing was just a mess.

 

[cborchardt82]

I had forgotten about a similar accident, because when I was going to the zombie walk as Evil Ash, I used spirit gum on my face and brought the small bottle with me in my shirt pocket. On the way back, I felt my shirt stucking to my chest, and started smelling the spirit gum. By the time I realized what happened, it was too late. I didn't screw the cap back onto the bottle all the way, and it was leaking into my shirt pocket. I threw out the bottle, and luckily the spirit gum stayed in the pocket region in a sticky puddle.

I guess I can say I'm not the only one, lol, but I'm sure glad that it didn't ruin your whole costume!

 

[cborchardt82]

My worst ever was my optimus prime fall of cybertron costume the thing was an all around pain but the worst part was the helmet. I put so much work into the thing and forgot to even try it on after i resined and fibre glassed it then on Halloween i realized that the thing didn't fit any more. So i had to desperately file it out so it would just barely fit my head. wearing ti was ungodly painful it was so heavy from all the extra bondo i put on it i built so much with bondo, but not only that in my rush to get the thing done i didnt really sand down the fibreglass inside the helmet so the thing was tight, heavy and butchering my ace every second i wore it. On top of that the strapping was not the greatest so i was falling apart as well. So i decided for my local comic expo i was going to cast the helmet so it would fit better and be lighter. I had so much bondo on the thing it was atleast 10% smaller on the inside than the outside so i figured this was the perfect solution. after dropping $400 on supplies for making the mold and spending a week working on it the mold didnt work at all it wouldnt hold together and with my inexperience i cut the jacket mold the wrong way and the entire thing was just a mess.
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OMG so sorry. That really does suck. Its worst when it costs you so much

 

[indianabric]

Few things are as bad as doing something wrong and only being able to figure out what to do to fix it once it's too late.
I made a foam Green Goblin helmet from scratch and ended up making the whole face and forehead wrong.

 

[dlcramer]

Wow, read the entire thread. I'm new to cosplay so I don't have a story but wanted to thank everyone that shared theirs. I now have a list I created from reading that I plan to follow.

The biggest I think being:
Have a handler that won't disappear.
Carry or keep near by a repair kit and spares where possible.
Try to finish early and have plenty of time (days not hours) for testing and mods.

 

[mdb]

*thumbs up to dlcramer* Very good, very very good

In hindsight.. each case of me having a "health crash" at conventions was me creeping ever closer to an adrenal crisis so.... yeah winding up in an ambulance in the US (from NZ, so healthcare is very different) just thinking I had run out of energy when in fact I was probably close to being on a drip with steroids being pumped in.. that was, in hindsight, my worst experience. But it was also great because of the people who helped me and were amazing. NZ cosplayers ftw! I have never and will never forget the awesome displayed that day.

Recently I have had a fairly severe allergic reaction to epoxy. My epoxy allergy is long standing but this time I got exposed to uncured epoxy on some scratches so wound up having steroid cream and high doses of antihistamines every few hours to damp it down for two weeks. The scratches also got infected which made it take even longer to heal... Technically one scratch still hasn't...

So take away: steroids are my frenemy. I need them for events (stress, I can't make enough naturally any more) but also have to reduce them super slowly.

The upside is costuming is my mental health release. Genuine zoning out when I pattern. I can do that for hours and no notice the time go by,

 

[Zombie Hadouken]

all the stormtrooper stories are cracking me up.

I was in the 501st years ago, and after i assembled my armor, I had a prop party at my house and a bunch of guys came over and we install straps and snaps on everything. also, cut your buttplate/ codpeice if you ever want to sit. there is a wealth of info on how to modify TK armor for comfort.

only odd thing that ever happened to me was when marching in San Fransisco and Oakland's holiday parade. I had one of the local news stations stop me in mid parade and begin to address me/ interview me as Darth Vader. I then told the lady that Vader was in the giant Tank 20 feet behind me, lol. kept happening all day.

Although it was awesome in Oakland- I had an old Black guy come out the crowd and say "a Black Stormtrooper....my brother!" then he gave me the fist pump and all I could do was give it back and laugh my ass off while continuing to march..... also, no matter how much the 501st guys wanted to march "military" style, in a formation, it was never gonna happen. when I was in the NAVY, there was a LOT of marching. after about 2 weeks of doing NOTHING but marching, you might have a solid unit, but not with 10mins of practice before a parade, lol.


Best costuming experience has to be at Celebration IV. The security staff was severley undermanned, and I'm 6'3" 200lbs, so they asked me for help.....
........with the Slave Leia photoshoot!

still managed to snap a pic while holding back literally hundreds of fanboys (think the comic book guy from the simpsons)