The Wonderful Wizardry of a Mishmash of Stuff

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and I love creating costumes and showing them off. My sisters and I enjoy dressing up with themes, and it falls to me to come up with amazing costume ideas for all of us (last year we went as Disney princesses and it was amazing!) This year though, we decided to be a little more original, at least, two of us did....... Anyway, we went as a barbarian, a mermaid, a half dragon wizard thing, and.... drumroll please! ....... A waitress???? (One of my sisters refused to choose a "typical adventuring build" so we decided to be a very high-class adventuring party) Only two costumes are featured here. Hopefully soon I will be able access all of my pictures and remember what I did.

For the Half Dragon Wizard

Base Costume (Note: Most of my base was created from pieces that I thrifted/was gifted/created in the past, the majority of things that I made were the accessories)

• Appropriately Adventure-y looking blouse
• Over vest (Mine was a freebie that I saw and immediately commandeered for projects)
• Cloak (Mine was made about three years ago for another costume, and I have used it for many many many projects since)
• Leggings
• Boots (I used a pair of snow boots cause it's cold in October)

Accessories/ Props

Staff

• Gnarled, old, weather-worn stick
• Hot glue (Thick sticks for crystals+ more for gluing)
• Box knife

Wings

• Black trash bags
• Duct tape
• 5 48 x 1/4" dowels
• 2 48 x 1/2" dowels
• Scissors
• Saw (for cutting the dowels)

Bag/Belt

• Mine is actually my everyday purse, but it looks appropriate to my character, so I just rolled with it

Horns

• Florist foam
• Glue
• Metal headbands
• Duct tape

Barbarian

Base costume

• Leggings
• Tunic
• Sheet
• Sewing machine
• Thread
• Winter boots

Ax

• Dowel or mostly straight stick
• Foam (we used Styrofoam, as regular cosplay foam would have sky rocketed our budget)
• Duct tape (Invest in a huge roll or four..... you'll need a lot between the ax, wings, and the other random fixes)

Hood/Gloves (The major construction of these had been completed pre-Halloween build for another project, sorry for the lack of help there)

• Leather cord or brown bias tape (depending on how spendy you're feeling)
• Extra furry fabric
• Fabric to bulk up the shoulders of the hood
• Thread
• Needle

Unfortunately for y'all, I don't really create "sketches" of my projects, so you just get the culmination of my research and the internet pics I find and store. These are just ideas and rough sketches that influenced the way I designed the costumes. I'm also only writing on two of the four costumes, as our waitress costume was created years ago and nothing new was added, and the mermaid was made out of a previous costume that was repurposed.

The barbarian was easy to research, and easier to create. I had made most of the pieces earlier, (sorry about that) and only had to add a few details to complete it. The worst part was the ax, but more on that later.......

The half dragon wizard, I spent the most time and energy on this one, as it was my costume, and the most complex to pull off. The wings were by far the hardest part, I started out following a tutorial, but quickly realized that fabric wings were FAAAAARRR too expensive to be practical, so I ended up "winging it" with trash bags and duct tape. (In addition to my improvisation skills. I also have a talent for coming up with horrible puns)

***A note on the half dragon, I searched and searched but wasn't really able to find a "precedent" for what I wanted to do. The closest match was the Succubus/Incubus demons from D&D the fifth edition, which wasn't really what I had in mind, but whatever.***

Okay..... first off is the dragon wizard. This character was a lot of fun to put together, and because I live in a city made up mostly of Reformed Christians who refuse to celebrate Halloween on a Sunday, I got to show it off for two days, Saturday and Sunday. The wings are enormous, as you can see in the pictures, but the horns were by far the coolest in my opinion. Especially after a younger boy asked me if they were real! Of course I told him they were! I also got asked if they were dog ears.... but we don't talk about that......

The staff was the first thing I made, and I forgot to take pictures, but fortunately, it's pretty straightforward. I got a bunch of fat hot glue sticks and carved them to look like crystals. Once I had enough to be satisfied, I just glued them on to the top of the stick and shouted "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" at random passerby's.

Okay, first off is the horns. I made these out of a long chunk of florists foam that was cut in half. Just cut a general horn-like shape out of foam, then carve it so it is a rough cone shape and your desired size. Florist foam is really really really messy when you cut it, and I suggest sealing it as soon as humanly possible.

You seal your horns by going over them with white glue. I had to do mine twice to keep it from shedding. After sealing comes painting. I, as previously mentioned, have limited resources and that reflected in my painting of the horns. I did them a simply black, but they could look even better with highlights and the like.

The next part was sort of annoying. I took two metal headbands and duct taped them together. Then I taped the horns to the headband, it sounded so simple in my head.......... A warning... duct tape sticks.... a lot... and it really hurts to pull it out of hair. (Yes, I did know this prior to this project, I just didn't expect my hair to find EVERY SINGLE CRACK so it could stick to the tape...)

I put the horns on by flipping a large section of hair from the front of my head over my face, sliding the headband on, then flipping the hair back over top to hide the headband. Bobby pins are advised but not required.

***Disclaimer: I kept forgetting to take pictures, so sometimes there will not be pictures of certain steps because I did it in my head instead of actually planning what I was going to do. Also the pairing of myself and phone results in horrible pictures. My apologies.*****

This part of the costume was the most impressive, and the piece I got the most compliments for. The wing span of mine is somewhere around 7 feet. Next year I hope to make them even bigger, to somewhere between 10 and 12 feet.

First, cover your dowels in tape. This will make them less likely to break, but also, if you mess up, it's easier to remove duct tape from duct tape than it is to remove tape from wood. Then, cut one bag open so you have a single piece of material. Lay three of your dowels across the bag in a suitable configuration, with the thicker one on the top, and once your are happy with how it looks, cut out your first piece. It should look something like picture 4.

After cutting, begin attaching dowels. Start with the thickest one, and tape it to the cutout. once you've done that, do the same thing with one of the skinny dowels. You now have the first section of a wing.

This is one of those parts with no pictures. You're gonna line up the finished section of the wing with the next piece of bag, and cut out your next pattern piece.

Attach the next skinny dowel to the piece you just cut out. Once you do that, cover the side without the dowel with duct tape. Picture 9 is what you'll eventually end up with, so if the next part doesn't make sense, that can be your reference.

Next step is attaching the first sections together to make the largest portion of the wing. Rip thin strips of duct tape (shown in picture 7). You're going to lay the strips along the skinny dowels. After that's done, you're going to attach the sections together. Basically, you just put the section together and cover the seam with tape.

You're gonna cut out a third piece of bag, to around the same size as the first two pieces, and cover both edges in tape. then repeat the previous step to attach this section to the others. You have one wing. Now you get to do it all again to make the other....

Now we have two disconnected things that look like bat wings, but how are we going to wear them? This was a question I struggled with for three days before coming up with any solution at all, then it took about another two and a half days to come up with my final design.

Grab the fifth skinny dowel, and measure the distance from shoulder to shoulder, then cut it to that length. Do the same thing with your lower back.

Cover the dowel sections with duct tape.

To attach the rod to your wings, simply use duct tape to stick it to the top joints. Find the point on the wings that aligns with were you want the second rod to sit on your back, and secure it with tape.

Straps... here we go. Last step until your wonderous wings are finished. Make two long strips of duct tape, and fold it into thirds. This step is shown in the second and third pictures. Lengthen or shorten as needed, then attach them to the back rods. Your wings are done..... aren't you glad?

As I already stated, this costume was simple to create. We created a sleeveless tunic out of a sheet with a cool border that ended up becoming a belt. Essentially we created a long, loose tube, added straps and made a simple belt. Because I am a mild fabric hoarder, I refused to let my sister cut up a large piece of faux fur for the under cape, instead, we folded it so that we could safety pin it, but that is my strangeness coming into play. I recommend using some extra fabric to bulk up the shoulders. We tried to do it, but due to shortness of time and materials, it didn't work very well. Anyway, enough about that, I am sure that ya'll want to know about that beautiful axe.

This was.... annoying. I learned from this that I will never again look at a piece of Styrofoam and say, "I think I could use this for a project." If I could go back and do this again I would go to a thrift store and find some of those thick foam mats that are used for teaching preschoolers, but I didn't so here we go.

I drew a paper pattern and laid it on my foam, then cut around it. This was messy, and our kitchen was COVERED in tiny pellets of foam. I had been planning on sealing the axe with glue like I did with the horns and painting it, but...... It didn't work. I had to re-evaluate, and since I was short on time, I decided to use duct tape again. I covered the edges first, since I was tired of them shedding every time I moved them. After that, I just covered the entire thing, then repeated the process for the other head. The fourth picture is the final product. The stick was a foundling from a retention pond we were helping some friends clean, and I attached the heads with...... more duct tape. No method really, just tape until its mostly stable and doesn't seem like its gonna fall off.

Some day when it's sunny and not cold, I'll do an actual photo shoot and it will be even more awesome. But for now, you'll just have to imagine how cool they are.