Happy Howlaween!

This year our little werewolf is evolving!

The furry sleeves were easy enough to sew and are elasticized at the top, the handpaws I made from a pair of white knit gloves and added paw pads ("Human ones, mom!"  "Huh...?"  More than just 4 pads, more like finger paw pads, you know?  "Oh. Okay, got it.").  The plastic claws were painted black, then I just snipped a tiny hole in the end of each glove finger, pushed the claw through from the inside out and hot glued it in place.  More fur hot glued to the tops of the glove makes them furry while still being able to use your hands.

Because long about midnight on Halloween Eve, the culmination of working with monsterous fluff-producing fun fur for three days pretty much ceases to be any fun whatsoever, the articulated mask was purchased (I'm not out to lose my sanity, after all).  Watching the thing move when she talks pretty much makes me giggle every time.

Because masks aren't allowed at school, for school she simply wore her little ears.  The vest may come into play tonight since it's supposed to get down into the low 30's.

At any rate, the kid is happy and looking forward to trick or treating with her friends tonight!

Update:  It was really dark tonight with no moon tonight and -zero- street lighting.  The costume was great, except about 30 minutes into trick-or-treating, she had to ditch the mask. When I asked her why, she said:  "I ran into a mailbox."

I couldn't help it, I laughed.  Bad mom.  BAD.

Happy Halloween!

So the kid went with 'Werewolf'' for Halloween this year.  Since it's for school and no masks or appliances are allowed, we did makeup, plus little wolf ears and a tail.

She wanted to be a pissy little werewolf, so I obliged.

 

'Look fierce!'

She already had the UNR 'Nevada Wolf Pack' shirt, so it worked out well.

Werewolf Makeup Practice Run!

Since I haven't ever done any Halloween makeup besides the zombie thing and the kid this year decided that she wanted to be a werewolf, thought I'd better practice. I was trying to follow this excellent tutorial here:  http://www.beautylish.com/v/rusuqv/werewolf-makeup-tutorial

We started with a base--white Halloween pancake mixed with regular foundation.  I was going for a pale ivory but got it a bit too white.

 

Next I added some brown cream makeup shading, making the widow's peak, going around the hairline and adding the beginnings of a fur beard.

Filled in the eyebrows and brown areas with black and brown eyebrow pencils for hairy details, added brown around her eyes, put in some scowly forehead & nose lines, then on her lips added some dusty rose lipstick with a bit of brown eyebrow pencil outline.

Fussed in the details, blended things and made the eyes more dramatic.

Took her out back and used temporary black hair spray to add black streaks to her hair and blend the makeup into the hairline better.  Smudged some of the black hair spray into the beard & widow's peak areas but forgot to add some to the eyebrows, which would have helped.

Then commanded her to 'look fierce'.

She didn't need colored contact lenses since her eyes are so light anyway (plus she's too young for them).  Fangs will also be out during school hours, but she'll have full fangs and claws for Halloween night trick-or-treating.

For school hours I practiced some nasty, filthy werewolf claws using yellow, brown and black nail polish.  Less messy than makeup and won't smudge or wash off.  I didn't use any makeup to pale out her hands since she'll be at school that day.

.
A few things I'll change on Halloween--less white in the foundation, the white pancake doesn't want to blend and tends to look too unnatural.  I'll also include her neck makeup on Halloween day.  No foundation under the widow's peak and beard areas, it tends to make the black/brown look too purple.  She had trouble trusting me to do makeup around her eyes and isn't used to it yet, so no mascara.  I'll also do a better job on her lips and eyebrows.

Her costume will be your basic jeans & t-shirt, but the shirt is from UNR and reads
'Nevada Wolf Pack', which I thought was appropriate and funny.  She'll also have the wolf ears and a tail she requested.

But considering I've never done a werewolf before, am working with grocery store cosmetics and don't have a clue what I'm doing, for a practice run it came out OK.

Happy Halloween!

Live the dream, man...live the dream.

Dawn Of The Dead!

Got the kid all zombified for Halloween at school, which meant getting up 45 minutes early in order to get the makeup done in time.

I didn't realize it when I posed her for pictures, but with the sun coming up behind her I got an inadvertent 'Dawn of the Dead' thing, there.

Also, I used an old box to make some quick & dirty coffins for the yard!

I was able to get two from the one box, I want them to look like they are half-buried in the front yard and kinda heaved up out of the ground.

In place:

The paint job isn't the best, but it'll do for Halloween night. The lawn being all dead and weedy is actually coming in handy for Halloween.

How To Make A Zombie!

While I was making up the kid for Halloween I took some pictures of the various steps. The costume goes on first. Then the two-part rubber prosthesis is stuck to her face--in this case a fake pencil positioned to look like it was rammed through her face. Also I added a homemade prosthesis made out of latex and paper towel shreds, which looks nicely like her throat was ripped out. What can I say, middle school can be tough.

Next comes the first layer of makeup--shadows around the eyes, bruising around the wounds.

The trick to makeup is thinking about what real wounds look like--they are never just one color, they are shades of red, purple and yellow. And blending. Lord, do ya ever have to blend and blend and blend.

More detail, with white pancake applied all over and some veining on her forehead. By now she's getting into character and hamming it up a bit.

Final makeup touches, finished with white powder to set the makeup and some fresh blood--after all, zombies gotta eat.

My lil' zombie!

We drove into town to take her trick or treating, and decided that we would skip being zombies ourselves...we could just see getting in a traffic accident and scaring the crap out of the emergency responders. We did go to a casino coffee shop for dinner afterwards though, where the kid drew all kinds of attention. As we were getting ready to eat an older couple stopped by our table on their way out, the husband dropping a five dollar bill in front of our daughter and saying cheerfully, 'That's for scaring my wife so badly she almost threw up!' His wife stood behind him, nodding energetically and laughing. We all laughed and thanked them.

Yay, zombies! Next year we have to find ourselves a good zombie crawl and attend. Or heck, if we can't find one, we'll start one...

Happy Halloween!

We love Halloween in our family, and since this year we were unable to do our annual Halloweencam thing, we settled for gussying ourselves up in our zombie best and shuffling over to the school carnival. Also, jack o' lanterns!

The kid and her loving father:

We had some time to kill (hurr) before the carnival started, so we went down to the local cemetery and crept around a bit.

Afterwards we went out and shambled around in front of the high school for a while, moaning and reaching towards cars as they sped by on the highway. People's reactions ranged from shocked stares to pointing and hysterical laughter. Heck, gives them something to think about and reinforces the 'small towns can be scary' thing.

We had a great time at the carnival and even won first place for 'Scariest' in the costume contest!

Halloween!

Had a terrific turnout this year, lots of kids & families having a good scare & taking lots of pictures with J. in his scarecrow costume. Only a couple of kids got truly scared, and most of them calmed down after getting an apology & loads of candy. :)

I tried something new this year and did a 'shaved' pumpkin:

The yard got some new decorations too, although since it rained right up till last night, we had to scurry and put everything out today.

The lawn is mid-redo so it's just dirt right now, which worked out great for looking more like a spooky graveyard.

The kid got pressed into service as a model for the chalk outline out on the sidewalk.

And this guy ditched the 'World's Most Difficult Puzzle' he normally is working on in favor of a Tarot reading...

And the kid did her 'Weeping Angel' thing with great success, fooled a lot of people into thinking she was yard art & scared them!

I wasn't happy with the wig at all and the dress needed to be darker--the makeup also, but I ran out of time. Also the cool fangs we got her wouldn't stay in. My favorite part of the costume are the claws, which looked freakin' great.