Harley Quinn - The Makeup

My first role on stage, I was in the 7th grade. There was (and still is) this awesome children's community theater in at the recreation center near my parents' house.  The musical was called Katastrophe Kate, and I had all of four lines at the very beginning as a young failure of a chef. I don't honestly remember how the story progressed after that but I spent the second half of the play without any speaking lines - I was a mime. A black-and-white striped, stuck-in-an-invisible-box mime. So I'd like to pretend that this whole all-white makeup thing is old hat.

Saturday evening, J and I stood in his bathroom - he was struggling with prosthetic scars while I surfed on his laptop and struggled with my $1.99 grease face-paint that despite all efforts maintained its uneven streakiness. So I gave up on that, this happened instead. I wish I had a camera that could more accurately pick up on all the colors and glitters in the eyes shadow. Ahhh well. This was inspired pretty specifically by this girl: http://media-cache-ec2.pinterest.com/upload/253116441527625990_s7fEGU4m_b.jpg whose blog I cannot locate anywhere. Damn.

Harley Quinn - Stage 2

Last night I drove over to Mom's house to work on Harley - she has all of the equipment and wisdom, after all. Didn't get there til later than I intended, since Colorado realized Halloween is next week meaning it is time to snow. I somehow thought I'd get a lot more done in a few hours, which is silly because I am awfully slow.  But what I did get done looks pretty decent - I have mom's serger (Google does not recognize the word serger. For shame, Google.) to thank for that, mostly. Here are some bad pictures.

Fixing the Unitard:   I originally marked a point in front and in back for cutting, since I need more room for my bum than in front - then realized since I'm turning the bottom around that would be a very bad idea very fast. So I marked a point at my hips, laid the uni flat, folded it in half, then cut straight across.  Put the right (outside) sides together, and serge.

You can see I started to pin some diamonds to the sleeve and leg - will finish those Saturday morning.

Couldn't figure out a good way to get pictures of the hood without putting the whole thing on. Definitely had a bit of a brain field day with with the striped fabric. I'm pretty proud of the way it turned out, though. It's lined with white on the inside, equal parts cozy and flouncy and sinister.

Craft store run today - black thread, sewing needles, acrylic paint so that I can hand-sew some embellishments tonight. Also stage 2 hair-bleaching. And cupcake-making - which is not at all related to this costume.

Also I love hyphens and wish Blogger automatically formatted for em dashes the way Microsoft Word does. And right before I began this sentence I learned the usage differences between an em dash and an en dash.  Maybe I'll do a make-up tutorial tonight.

Harley Quinn - Stage 1

Sometime in September, I decided that the Boyf and I should be the Joker and Harley Quinn for Halloween.  

Let me start with this: I fucking love Halloween. Favorite holiday, by far - always has been. Maybe that's because I have a bitchin' seamstress of a mother who made all of my costumes and prom dresses through my child- and teen-hood. Actually... yes, that's definitely the reason.  So now that I am older and pagan-er, I would trade all of the Christmases and Easters in the world for Halloweens, no question. 

Anyway, shortly after beginning to ponder Harley designs, I came across this one-sie at the Arc nearby. RIGHT?! Freaking perfect. In one instant the decision for Halloween this year was made and I knew the thrift store gods were rewarding me for all of my dedication over the years.

I am definitely putting my own spin on the costume, largely due to the fact that rocking red spandex round the ass can't actually be possible - even if it is only half, so I'm wearing black shorts over. And with waist-length hair, The Real Harley's head-formed jester hood simply will not work. So I'm adding a looser, creepy-cloak style hood in the red-and-black stripe fabric above.  I found the mask at Disguises in Wheat Ridge - if you haven't been, GO. 

Need to turn the bottom half of the leo around and fix the zipper, make/add the hood and other embellishments. Will be doing this tomorrow and posting progress on this blog all week.

Oh, and I bleached the front half of my dark brown hair.  So yes, it is orange. Round two, hopefully with the end result of blonde, will be Thursday.