Harry Warden vs. Tom Atkins

Yes I said Tom Atkins!! Oh my, Tom was a lot of fun. He signed my H3 poster and also a few 8x10 stills of Halloween 3 and My Bloody Valentine 3D. He was really digging my costume. Before I could ask he grabbed the pick axe and held it up under his chin for a picture. He was great!! I will be posting more pictures of Horrorhound/Mask-fest 2011 soon.

Corn Reaper

Here is a scarecrow costume I made back in 2008. Wanted to get a photo shoot in before the snow flies. Couldn't believe the corn wasn't chopped down this late in the fall so we took advantage. Ames took all the shots and the man in costume is...you know who.

A little background on the mask: it is supposed to be an appliance that glues to your face. Changes were made. I added some twine to the mouth and one eye, repainted certain areas, and then sewed a hood onto it. Then I glued some foam to the inside and added some elastic straps to keep it tight to my face. It can be slipped on and off quickly without having to use spirit gum and turned out to be a very comfortable face mask.

A Little Behind

I haven't posted more updates on the DNOTS costume because I haven't done any more work on it. Eeeck! Been busy with, well, things. I'm not fretting though because there really isn't that much left to do. All that's left is to add straw to the pants and do some more weathering. I hope to be done by this weekend and get some pics up soon.

Almost time...

to play. One more day until the haunted house opens. I'm making some slight adjustments to my Harry Warden costume. Doing some extra weathering in a few spots.

Costume Update

You just gotta love thrift stores. There's always something I find there that I could use. I found a trenchcoat there and except for the tan color the look is good. I broke out the rit dye and gave it a good soak of blue. The color turned out pretty good. Then raffia was glued to a few spots on the sleeves. The last step was weathering. I may do some more on it yet. I don't want to go overboard since the coat in the movie doesn't appear to have much weathering it.

Sorry, I forgot to take a before shot. The flash washed out alot of the weathering but here is what I did so far.

Mask Update

I've been punching straw through parts of the mask. Still need to do some more but it's coming along nicely.

Costume Progress - Mask Screening

Here is how the mask looked before I started screening. For those who want to know, I got this mask at a Horrorhound con last year. It was sculpted for the publicity of Dark Night of the Scarecrow's upcoming dvd release.
























First I had to cut the latex out of the mouth and eyes. Then I took two layers of window screen and hot glued them to the inside of the mask. The second layer is glued on offset to the first layer. A fellow mask aficionado told me of this technique. Thanks Travis!
The nice thing about using hot glue is that if you ever want to take it off, it just peels off and doesn't damage the mask.
Note: Do not use hot glue on the outside of a mask unless it is a mask you don't care about. If you try to peel off the glue it will take paint with it!

Here is how it looks screened. From a distance you won't see the screen, it will look like empty black holes.

Idea For This Years Costume

After thinking long and hard about it, I think I'm going to make a Bubba scarecrow from Dark Night of the Scarecrow. It's such a classic movie and the costume is so simple yet very creepy. One of the major factors for my decision is the dvd that to be released end of September. I adore this movie and feel compelled to honor its release.

Items needed: mask, trenchcoat, flannel shirt, blue jeans, boots, gloves, straw, rope and pitchfork.

Fortunately I already have the mask, which would have been the most difficult piece to acquire. My plan is to start screening the mouth and eye holes on the mask tomorrow. I'm going to try real hard to post pics as I make progress on this project.

Fear

One of the best costumes of Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow I have ever seen. The lighting is wonderful.

Here is an interesting video I found of the performance. Skip ahead to 2:18.

Cereal Spokesman

Reaper of the Fields

I'm a sucker for an evil scarecrow costume. This one means business.

Image source

Almost Here

Costumes from 2003

Going through some old pictures of Halloween costumes and thought I'd share this one of us. Ames and I attended a charity costume party for Children's Hospital where I was Narcissic, a cenobite and Ames was Chiana from Farscape. Ames looked fantastic and she received a lot of great compliments. I remember getting the evil eye and hearing a few nasty comments from people that thought my costume was too gruesome and hardcore.

Funny note: I had pieces of flesh hung on fish hooks on the front of my costume. The barbs were dull but kept snagging Ames costume while we were dancing.

Reaping

Strange artwork of Heiko Müller.

Image source

Harry Warden Returns

My Bloody Valentine is one of my favorite slasher flicks. I enjoy movies where the killer could be anyone underneath the costume. I spent a good part of this year assembling the miner costume from the MBV 3D remake that was released earlier this year. Chris Carnel is the stuntman/actor who played the miner in the film. I absolutely loved his performance! I had the pleasure of meeting Chris at a convention last year and he is the most down to earth friendly guy.

Shortly after Halloween a friend and I drove to a county park with real caves, a perfect setting to photograph me as Harry Warden. Unfortunately most of the pictures did not turn out.
I've been wanting to go back to the caves and do a reshoot. This weekend, Ames and I set aside time but found out the park is closed for the year. Needless to say we had to find an alternate location. A week ago I discovered an old shut-down alcohol plant nearby. I spoke with the owner and was granted permission to take pictures there. We were not allowed inside the building as it was being rented, so we had to be creative outside. We talked our friend Julie into playing the "victim" in some shots. We had lots of fun and the shoot went very well. I wish we could have been there closer to dusk but we made the most of it. Here are a few of my favorite shots of the miner.

Pick

My buddy took a few pictures of me in my Halloween costume this year. I need to organize the rest of the pictures so until then here's one of my favorites.