Work in Progress: Weeping Angels Build

Marence

New Member
Weeping Angel Build

I started thinking about doing this when I first saw "Blink." I decided to tackle it for Halloween this year sometime at the beginning of September. Better late than never, right? Well, as you can see from the title, it's still a work in progress. Post-Tropical Cyclonic Sandy made it impractical to try to finish for a 40 degree rainy night. I had intended for this year's costume to be just the wig, dress, and wings, using makeup for the face, neck and chest, and arms, and to create a full face foam latex prosthetic with lenses for eyes for next year. It looks like I'll have time to make the whole costume now.

I had two considerations - comfort and cheapness. Comfort first, because I have physical limitations that make squeezing into heavy, uncomfortable materials a thing of the past. The costume had to be easy to put on, easy to wear, and easy to manuever in.
Cheap - well, luckily I have bins and bins of costuming and craft junk. I was able to find wig and dress supplies in the bins, so the main cost was in feathers for the wings (about $12) and stone and other spray paint (estimated total $50).

Wig
I started with a cheap synthetic witch wig that had seen better days, and styled it with the addition of a synthetic hair braid I also had in the costuming bins. After styling, I coated it thickly with hair gel, both to set the pincurls around the face and to prevent most of the flyaway hairs that would take away from the look of stone. Half a can of stone set most everything in place, but the black of the wig still showed through too obviously. A coat of flat grey and highlights of white before the rest of the can of stone was applied made it better.

Dress
Two pieces, plus a belt.
I had inheirited a Lady Liberty costume dress made in the early 60s from some indestructible polyester which isn't nearly long enough for me to wear for an angel- I'm 5" taller than my mother was - but had the classic yoke and look. This would be the top. The skirt was taken from a high-waisted thrift store dress with a messed-up bodice. The bodice was cut off, a waistband fashioned, and a skirt, with a nubby fabric that would help with the stone look, was made. I put a wire from an old foldable laundry basket into the hem for the hoop. The belt is an unused one I had in my closet, with a braid of old T-shirt fabric glued to the front.

Wings
A cast-off spring wire was used to fashion a loop for support, and the wings were cut out of a shipping carton for a poster. White craft foam feathers were hot-glued over the wings. They weigh very little.
All of the wing designs I had seen or made myself previously had some kind of shoulder harness or body support. Due to the disability, this wouldn't be comfortable or practical. I devised a method of support for the wings that is supplied through the belt at the waist. 2 pins at the neck, and a ring at the waist, and the wings were stable.

Next steps -
Due to the color and material variations in all the pieces, I first base-coated everything with flat light grey. Still not a color match, so I spent a few days dust-coasting dark grey, light grey, and white over the pieces until they were a tolerable match. Since my first run for supplies included only 2 cans of spray stone, and I used up one on just the wig, I was worried that one can wouldn't cover anything. It did mostly cover the bodice of the dress, the wings, and the front of the skirt. I estimate I'll need 2 more cans to finish the skirt (natural fabrics soak up so much!) and fill in missing spots from the first spray stoning.
I'm planning on using a pair of grey tights I found for hand and sleeve coverage as done in the excellent build by Penwiper.
There will also be a face/neck/chest foam latex piece to sculpt and mold, but that won't be til summer(the oven I use for foam latex work is in an unheated garage) and I have to figure out the engineering problem of making the lenses for eyes. If I need to wear the costume before next Halloween (for instance, if someone gives me a trip to Gallifrey One as a birthday present - unlikely, but possible) I'll just go with makeup and a dental prosthetic.

I'm using Picasa for picture storage and have found it impossible to embed separate pics, but here's a link to the album showing the build so far: https://plus.google.com/photos/103112785488238204056/albums/5805253575322552081
 
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