Shoddy costumes: Film Fatale, Hallowe'en, and who the hell is Bucky?

Spoilers further down for Captain America: The Winter Soldier. But they're kind of obvious and most people knew it going into the cinema, I think. Phone quality photos, too.

I went to see Psycho in The Sugar Club for October's Film Fatale. I'm bad at putting together era-specific costumes, but I was happy with the dress and make-up for this.

Psycho gets better on rewatching, too. "My mother, she - oh, what is the phrase? - she's not quite herself today."

I spent Hallowe'en night running a pumpkin carving workshop at work. The general public are surprisingly good with knives! I was happy with my fake bruises, even if a lot of people didn't notice them. (I had fingerprints around my wrists - given that people didn't notice the one around my neck, they were probably an unappreciated effort.)

I like to dress up as something scary rather than specific characters for Hallowe'en, but Bucky Barnes's loss of agency and autonomy as the Winter Soldier strikes a nerve for me. No-one seemed to have seen Cap 2 whenever costume plans came up, but the gentleman in the off-license realised who I was once I asked if he had seen Captain America 2, as did a few other people at the party I went to. Only one person figured out who my costume was unprompted, but couldn't tell who I was under it - to the point of not being able to discern gender - so I think that's a reasonable success.

I think my costume was the right amount of effort + mediocrity. I'm also weirdly prone to letting the length of my hair determine my costume - see Harry Potter last year.

Hallowe'en costume and crafts

I'm a bit behind the times, but here's what I did and made for Hallowe'en.

Shoddy nail art! I'm pretty happy with how the right hand turned out, given that I'm right-handed and used the easy ones on my left hand.

The first pumpkin I have carved in years! I carved it the Friday before Hallowe'en, then forgot about it until Hallowe'en night, by which time it had gone too soft to lift the lid off and light a candle inside for full effect. Woops.

Cupcakes! The recipe is from the Moosewood recipe book, with added almond and raspberries, the icing is vanilla buttercream, and I bought the toppers in Fallon and Byrne. This was my first time using food colouring in a good many years, and I added to much to the red, but this had the result of making it look like viscera while not tasting or feeling any different. Accidental success!

I dressed up as Harry Potter! I couldn't find a red and yellow tie, so I got a red one and wound a yellow ribbon around it. I got green contacts, which had a fairly narrow gap for the iris, obscuring my vision, and borrowed a pair of my mother's old glasses, which blurred my vision even without the contacts, so really I think the fact that I didn't drop or break anything is a success story.

I used rigid collodion for the scars, after becoming smitten with this tutorial. Because I did it in a rush, and the scars I was applying were rather fine, it didn't turn out quite as well, but I was happy enough. I used lip-liner to draw the scar on the back of my hand, and concealer for the lightning bolt. Apart from the shine, which I couldn't fully take away with powder foundation, they looked quite good.

I should probably end this with "and on to Christmas knitting!" but I have most of my Christmas knitting done, actually. Not to brag or anything. Just saying.

Costumery: Steampunk something!

I went to a Steampunk night in The Sugar Club on Friday! It was lots of fun, and I got to dress up, and if you ever get a chance to see anything with Foxy P. Cox in it you really should.

I didn't leave myself a whole lot of time between deciding to go and the event, I think my costume was a decent effort.

I photograph awkwardly. This was the best one.

I made the blouse + collar from this Threadbanger tutorial. It sits a bit funny because I used a men's shirt, and men's shirts for some reason don't accommodate hips, WHAT IS UP WITH THAT. The sleeves hit my arm at a funny length, but that was the longest I could cut it due to the length of the slit for the cuff to roll up. The collar was loose enough to scoot itself around my neck, too. Perhaps I should have bought a blouse, designed for people with child-bearing hips and stubby little fore-arms. I also could probably have used a few more tea-bags to stain it a slightly darker brown. Overall I'm happy though, I'm going to hang onto it for use in future costumes.

The rest of the costume doesn't have much backstory. I bought the corset in Camden Market two years ago, and borrowed the boots from my sister.

For make-up, I used the Steampunk Airship Pirate tutorial by Hollywood Noir, but chickened out of doing such a dramatic style, and didn't have the right colours for a lot of it, and ended up looking like a non-descript goth. But I think that's acceptable for the circles who'd go to a steampunk night anyway.

Not very good photos because I was running late. I am a walking planning fallacy.

I think it's a good baseline costume, I might try to build on it for Hallowe'en. Threadbanger have a tutorial for making goggles, and it's above my current ability but my goodness, this working robot arm. If nothing else, I now have a just-in-case costume other than "pirate, I guess".

Dolling myself up.

I went to a party last night and tried to turn myself into a creepy doll for it.  I hadn't done a run-through of the costume or make-up, and ended up as more of a goth kid instead.  Oops.

Anyway, here are photos!

If I straightened and dyed my hair I could have gone as a Beatle!  Too late, too late.

Normal hair...

Hair full of gel.

This is just cheesy, and defeats its own point since the finger hides the stitches, please do not judge me.

And off I go to hang out outside Central Bank!

What are you dressing up as?