Last Tuesday Mardi Gras was celebrated in my country.
I must say this occasion is the only reason I don't absolutely, utterly, purely hate Winter. I had had the idea on the costume about a month beforehand, but only managed to start working on it the weekend before the carnival. And not only on one, but on two costumes (but that's another story).
Anyway, a bunch of my friends and I decided to go as the Zodiac this year. Although I am a Libra, I opted for the Scorpio, solely because a few years ago I went as Lady Justice - which is quite similar to Libra, I think. And I hate repetition.
Now, if you would like to know how to make a costume like this, or simply need some costume inspiration, read on!
I must warn you right away: creating this costume was one of the most demanding and exhausting tasks I have ever undertaken: considering I was on a tight schedule, I literary spent four full days with scissors and a needle in my hand. Every little detail of the costume was handmade: hand-cut, hand-sewn and hand-painted. At a moment, I was seriously considering going as a crippled Scorpio: they tend to lose their extremities duing fights, don't they? Sewing machine would have made it a zillion times easier. But I guess I like to suffer.
The first detail I made were the claws. I made them by cutting some silicone sponge sheet into a claw-like shape (later regretting for making it by rote, and not by thoroughly investigating the scorpion anatomy), covering it in black polyester fabric and sewing it onto a pair of black gloves. Now I wish I had made them bigger, thinner and sharper.
Then I proceeded to the body. The abdomen, tail, venom bulb and walking legs were made out of black polyester fabric filled with silicone sponge sheets cut into small pieces. I used a white chalk for marking the cutting lines, which proved much helpful. For accentuating the stinger and the claws on each leg, I used red organza fabric.
After the arachnid body was all done, I sew it onto an old T-shirt and added some faux leather and stud rivet details on the shoulders to make it look more like an armour. I also wore a black corset above the T-shirt in order to prevent the costume from pulling my T-shirt backwards (luckily I had only sewn the costume onto the top and bottom of the T-shirt, completely forgetting about the corset!). As for the final touch, I painted the Scorpius Constellation with gold acrylic paint on the black leather pants I wore.
As for the makeup, I completely messed up this time – again, owed to getting dressed at the last moment. But for the purpose of this blog post, I decided to recreate the original idea I had. It's just an outline created using only regular beauty products - eye pencils and eyeshadows, but I hope you'll like it!
Did you dress up for Mardi Gras this year? What did you go as?
P.S. sorry for the poor photo quality; all were taken in a rush with my cell phone.
P.S. sorry for the poor photo quality; all were taken in a rush with my cell phone.
- 6:19 pm
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