Yrien's 2014 Halloween Costume Contest Entry - Death Eater

[Yrien]

Previous Halloween costumes have usually been put together from various bits and pieces, and fairly generic (a cat, a witch, etc.). This year, my husband and I decided to try something a little different - making ourselves Death Eater costumes (from Harry Potter).

We were inspired by Jen on EPBOT, who posted a few tutorials for light-up wands (http://www.epbot.com/2014/07/diy-light-up-wand-tutorial-for-harry.html) and paper mache masks (http://www.epbot.com/2014/06/diy-harry-potter-death-eater-mask.html). Both are things we've never tried before, but didn't appear too daunting. We're both still very new at this whole costume-building thing, so our skill levels are pretty low when it comes to stuff like this!

Here was our main inspiration. We're planning on a base of black clothes from our closets, but we needed to make robes, wands, and masks (and probably wand holsters too, if we have time).



We started with the robes, lucking into a 50% off sale at our local fabric shop since we needed 8 metres of fabric for both sets. My cats were very "helpful" during the process of drawing and cutting out the patterns, but I did eventually manage to get everything cut out, sewn (using my new serger for the first time!) and finished (my robe is modelled on my mannequin, which is still wearing the shirt I painted for a future Hawkeye costume.



We also started working on the masks. We had originally wanted to buy plain plastic masks to build details on top of, but couldn't find any that were big enough for my husband's face so we decided to try Jen's tutorial for making paper mache versions instead. We started with aluminium foil shaped to our faces, which we then covered with paper mache. Once that dried, we covered the paper mache with air-dry clay. This was our first major setback, as my mask cracked to pieces while drying (and the clay lifted up off the paper mache, making it completely unusable). My husband's was still in good shape so he was able to use it, while I went with a plastic base mask instead.

 

[Yrien]

I cut the mouth out of the plastic mask, then started designing the details. I drew out a mouth grill and cut it from craft foam, and drew the curlicues on plain white paper before cutting it out and gluing it to the mask with spray adhesive. I glued the mouth cover on with superglue (my first time ever using it - and naturally I got some on my fingers!).



For my paint scheme, I decided to go with the paler white/bone/gold look rather than the darker grey/silver from the inspiration above. I'm still working on finishing all the details and doing some weathering, but here's the base of the paint job.



I think the thing I'm the most proud of so far is the wand. We've never done electronics before (and had help from a more knowledgeable friend), but I think they turned out really well! We started with the wiring - my husband chose a reddish orange LED and I went for a black light one. Once everything was soldered together, we put the wand together. The LED goes at the tip of a wooden dowel, and the batteries are hidden inside an interesting contraption - a pair of plastic hair rollers from the dollar store! Everything was taped and glued together, then the whole thing was covered in air-dry clay and painted. My finished paint job also incorporates some glow-in-the-dark paint in the cracks and crevicies of the clay (shown in the last pic, but really hard to photograph, sorry! You'll have to look at the full-size version of the pic to see it).

 

[Yrien]

The last stages of the build were weathering the mask, and building a wand holster. I was really pleased with how the mask turned out. It took about 3-4 hours (can you tell I've never done this sort of thing before and wasn't quite sure what I was doing?).



The wand holster started out as a piece of obnoxiously green craft foam and some silvery snakeskin-patterned fabric left over from another project. I used spray adhesive to glue the foam to the fabric, then folded the edges over and hot-glued everything together. It fits really well inside my sword frog, which is good because the straps I was trying to make didn't work (the wand is really handle-heavy, and it kept tipping the whole holster over and sliding out - not exactly secure!). I'll figure out something else if I decide to wear this to a con, but this solution worked for Halloween. I also ended up having to completely repaint the wand after it got cracked at a Halloween party and needed some emergency repairs before bed last night!



I also bought some Dark Mark temporary tattoos from Esty, and painted over it with glow-in-the-dark craft paint (since the LED in my wand is a black light!).



Here's a quick pic from the car on the way to a Halloween party last night. I completely forgot to get a proof pic yesterday, so I'll need to get one when we get dressed for another party tonight.

 

[Michael Bergeron]

This entry just needs the proof pic and the gallery pic.

 

[Yrien]

Proof pic!



And a couple of pics in my front hallway of the finished costume. I didn't wear the contact lenses last night because I can only wear them for a couple of hours at a time and we were going to be out super late.



- - - Updated - - -

This entry just needs the proof pic and the gallery pic.

Done!

 

[Michael Bergeron]

This entry is complete. :thumbsup

 

[WhillB]

Black light in the wand?! Brilliant!!!

 

[Yrien]

Black light in the wand?! Brilliant!!!

I had originally bought a reddish-orange LED but my friend had a pack of the black light ones and I changed my mind so fast, lol. It's not nearly as bright as the other one, but I loved being able to make things glow!