Behold: Truly Hideous Pants

Images via Style.com

These wondrous pants are courtesy of Givenchy Resort 2011.
The worst part about them is how they sneak up on you. Scrolling down on the image everything looks fine as the red is camouflaging. Only when you look a bit closer does the horror become clear and then you can't look away!

Summer Project

School's out and my completely non-costume related project is about to begin: decorating my new apartment! Right now I'm super excited about weeks of reupholstering, creating sewing nooks and most importantly Ikea trips.

Aaarg!

 Woohoo! Zombie finals! Want to look like a frozen zombie? Here's what you need:

• Water-based make-up palette
• Cotton batting
• Gelatin
• Fake snow crystals
• Epsom Salt
• KY Jelly

All of the coloring is just face paint. The growths are the cotton batting dipped in warm liquid gelatin with paint and snow crystals or Epsom salt on top. The KY jelly is for the hair and for a glistening effect.

The costume consists of items I found at a thrift shop that are ripped and distressed. Epsom salt and sugar are applied with Elmer glue and corn syrup. It is gross, sticky and uncomfortable but it was easy to apply and only had to last for a couple hours.

I know what I'm doing for Halloween!

Break Your Heart

Western Costume is a big costume rental place here in LA. They rent to all the movies studios, independent films, theatre designers, etc. Well, a couple of weeks ago they had a huge sale so naturally I was there at 8am to participate. While I got some great things for ridiculously cheap I saw the above dress. It didn't fit me so I put it down.

It turns out it was Betty Draper's dress from Mad Men! I'm re-watching season 1 and noticed it.
Why didn't I hold onto the dress?!?! I could never fit into it, but I still could have held it up to me and pretended I was a discontent housewife with a misogynistic husband. Blerg!

micmacs

So I'm just finding out about this movie but it just shot to the top of my must-see list. And it's by Jean-Pierre Jeunet?!?!!? Sold! It's written and directed by the man for Amelie so how could it not be wonderful?? Plus the posters and stills are sooo pretty.

Sadly, it's so close to finals that I'm going to have to wait a couple of weeks before I can see it. =*( I guess I'll just have to watch Amelie for the millionth time while I work on projects...

zombie makeover

My first three frozen zombie attempts

Zombie Makeover

Because we're working on zombies for our class, we also got a crazy fun makeup demo. He mainly used water based colors, corn syrup, gelatin, bread crumbs and cereal to get the effects.

Anthony never looked better, no?

Rick Baker's Fabulous Studio

Last Saturday I got to go and see makeup extraordinaire Rick Baker's studio. Nobody special, just a winner of 6 Academy Awards and designed creatures for movies like The Grinch, Men In Black, Planet of the Apes, Wolfman, and the Nutty Professor.  It was better than Disneyland (OK, I've ever been to Disneyland, but I'm pretty sure this tops it).

His studio is an enormous area full of creature creating cubicles, make-up rooms, Gothic inspired architecture and a graveyard. Yeah that's right, a graveyard! There also was a mini-museum area where the creatures he created were on display. Naturally pictures needed to be taken to document everything.

Eyebrow Gluing: You know, just a normal Thursday night...

Gotta love studying costume design. We get random but fun homework assignments like this week's "blocking eyebrows" task. Last night I blasted a Queen/David Bowie/Abba mix and got to work. 

The formula extraordinaire is:

- Brush and coat eyebrows with Elmer's stick glue -

- Using a brush, powder and glue again -

- Repeat gluing and powdering until eyebrows are completely smooth and flattened -

- Apply an extremely thick concealer over glued brows until fully covered -

- Blend into make-up until brows are invisible -

***Drag makeup optional**

This was my first attempt but it seemed to go relatively well. My brows are narrow but are dark and super dense making them difficult to camouflage. I had to coat and coat and coat them to discover that no matter what I tried you could still see the eyebrow ridge around the section by the bridge of my nose.  With practice I'm sure this wouldn't be a problem..... or it's because I'm just abnormally hairy.  ;)

I've sewn a costume to her face...

Here's a sneak peak on where I'm at with my oh-so-fancy Ascot dress I stitched last night while watching Titanic. I'm a little bummed because the stripe is too small to see except close up *sniff*.

Ideally I wanted wider sized stripes but ended up not finding the right size anywhere. Sheesh, who knew perfectly striped silk would be impossible to find?! I kinda wish I went with the silk polka dot fabric I would have chosen if it was period correct {darn those nit-picky project rules!}. Even though I'm suffering from fabric remorse I know everything will turn out fine in the end. It just needs some big ol' trimming and it will be fabulous.

my first zombie

Aw yeah, it's zombie time! Behold my first draft of zombie makeup I'll be doing at the end of the quarter.

I'm still working out the specific disgusting details but this is my initial look for a frozen zombie. I want to have patches of frostbite and possibly frozen snow or frost encrusting. Naturally, being dead and all, there also needs to be some flesh decay but I'm not sure how much. I've been watching some really gross youtube videos on zombie makeup. There is some crazy, crazy stuff out there.  Even though a lot of it is really nasty, it's still really amazing to see everyone's tricks. I watched waaaay too many of them last night.

As much as I loved watching those gory how-tos, I don't think I want to go that. Just because I'll be the living dead doesn't mean I still can't look good. After all, true beauty never fades.