For those of you that have been out of English class for way too long, or never paid attention in the first place! Let me give you a quickie synopsis to refresh your memory of who she was...
"Medusa" as you know, is from Greek Mythology.
Once upon a time Medusa was so strikingly beautiful that men found her irresistible. She did the "nasty" (willingly or unwillingly - depending on what version you read) with the God of the Sea, Poseiden, while in Athena's castle. The Goddess Athena was so outraged by this act (and she herself was jealous of Medusa's beauty) that she transformed Medusa's long, beautiful, hair into serpents, and turned her face so ugly that one look would turn onlookers into stone.
Her death came from a beheading by Perseus (who was sent on a mission by a King) who used the reflection from a shield that was given to him by the Goddess Athena (go figure) to look at Medusa without turning into stone himself.
When Perseus beheaded her, a winged horse (Pegasus), and a golden, sword wheeling giant, sprang from her body. Her head was then placed in a sack and was used by Perseus to turn his would be attackers into stone.
I would like to tell you that I have some passionate attraction to this mythological character, or that her life is some type of symbolism or metaphor for my own, but in all honesty it's neither, I just thought it would be "Cool".
Yup, that's Regan from the iconic 1973 horror movie "The Exhorcist".
I didn't see this movie until almost 15 years after its release (I was just a baby)- but when I did, I was scared to death! She was creepy stuff!
I was dead set on being Regan this year. I chose her because I wanted to do a frightening costume, and it's been a few years since I've been a scary figure. To help refresh my memory of her, I watched videos on her make-up and her character and had all of my supplies in waiting. But at the last minute, I decided not to go with that.
4 days before Adult Halloween I started thinking... I was worried that because she is SO iconic that if I missed just one mark on my make-up that it would be no different than listening to an American Idol contestant sing a Whitney Houston song out of tune. I would fail.
Not to mention, outside of her gory make-up, and the legend that she is -She is a little PLAIN.
I wanted something MORE. (Would you expect anything less from me? lol!)
I just happen to be surfing the WWW for different ideas when I came upon this gal's beautiful rendition of Medusa. Her costume was to die for!
(What the?? "Scared to DEATH", "DEAD set", to "DIE for"... Lol!)
I had loved her costume so much that I had decided that I wanted to give it a whirl!
I just wanted something creepier, darker, and more Demon like.
A simple food colander.
This was going to be the base of my headpiece.
Which turned into this:
A little flat black paint is all it needed!
It didn't matter if it wasn't the world's best paint job, nobody was going to see it anyway. I just needed it not to be green, and to not say "Tupperware"! LOL!
Next up- The Serpents were born!
I made primitive looking snakes by untwisting wire hangers and cutting them in half. Then, I used plastic shopping bags, wrapping the bags around a wire - to give the snake girth. Each snake wire required 3 shopping bags wrapped like a candy cane, keeping one end free of plastic in order to have a bit of wire to be able to attach it to the colander with. Next, I took blue painter's tape and wrapped the bag covered hangers. (Not to make it look snake sexy, just to keep the damn bags on!) After that, I took regular masking tape and wrapped neatly (er.. or "neater") to try and make them look smooth. I then bent the wires to resemble snakes and added more tape where needed. Finally, I took cheap black and grey spray paint and painted the snakes, finishing by adding red glitter glue for eyes. I went for a more blotchy, imperfect look with my paint to give it a more grisly appearance.
Sometimes "Imperfect" is perfect!
When dry, I started to wire them onto the colander.
I really liked the stiffness of the wire hangers. I could get them to stand up without worry of falling over. I continued to make more wire snakes, and continued adding them to the colander.
I would constantly put the colander on my head checking for balance, and visual appeal. I moved the snakes around as needed. I didn't want it to fall off my head because it was too weighty on one side!
(At this point it still unfortunately looks like a colander!)
Creating my Boa Constrictor:
Because all of my snakes were relatively the same diameter, I wanted to give it something larger to add dimension. Lucky for me, my local Goodwill store was having a clearance on Ladies Knee High Panty Hose! $.10 a pair! SCORE! (FYI- I felt stupid going through checkout with my $.25 worth of panty hose!) Once upon a life I was way more crafty than I am now and I just happened to have a large box of bulk quilt batting laying around. I began by stuffing the hosiery until it was approx. 4" in diameter, and 20" long. I then tied a knot in the open end. Because my hosiery was more brown than black I started out by spray painting it black first. Which because of the nature of the beast ended up being a dark shade of grey. To give it the final snake look I used a gauntlet glove (which was part of a past costume), stretched it over the snake, and spray painted the glove grey. After a few minutes, I peeled off the glove, leaving this beautiful snake pattern underneath.
I thought this turned out perfect! I was so pleased with the results.
After everything was dry, I wired it (using fine gauged jewelry making wire) onto the colander (hiding both ends of the hose under the brim of the headpiece - making it look like just a coil of a serpent's body)
The Little Snakes:
These lil poppers are just cheap, dollar store plastic kid's toys. They come in an array of bright colors! I painted them using a combination of black and grey spray paint. Some are painted all black, some all grey, some a combination of both. After they were dry, I took 3 snakes to a group and wired them (jewelers wire) together. For the final cosmetic touch, I sprayed some hair spray glitter that I had lying around onto the bunch.
I was happy with this look! I then used the groups of snakes to fill in (wire on) the void spaces on the colander.
Almost done!
Continually checking for balance and symmetry.
(This thing was WIDE! I couldn't walk straight through a doorway anymore, I had to turn to the side!)
(Picture of the back of it.)
I didn't add any large wired snakes poking out the back because I needed to be narrow enough to walk sideways through a doorway. If I put them out the back, I wouldn't be able to clear the doorway!
As a final touch on the piece, I wired in some "real" looking rubber snakes (black cobras, garter snake, and a misc. one that I have no clue what type!) that I had borrowed from a friend.
They really added a pop of realism!
NEXT PROJECT:
The Make-Up...
Let's see... Where to start???
I knew that this would be a huge undertaking for me because I've never used wax before. So I allotted 3.5 hours to get ready.
First up, my hair:
OK, before I get started, LET'S BACK THIS TRUCK UP!
You are probably wondering what the Hell on earth I am wearing!
Because I didn't have anything to put on that I was willing to get dirty with make-up, I decided to use the retro, thrift store find "house coat" that was to be part of my Regan costume.
(It's embarrassing enough to post close-up non make-up pictures of myself, AND wear something completely hideous on top of it! *crawls under rock* lol!)
Back to my hair...
I experimented with hiding my hair under the headpiece vs. leaving it down. Up made it really look like a bowl on my head with my hair hidden, so I had decided to leave it down and curl it in rings to give it an appearance of being snakes (yes, it was quite the stretch!)
Next came the eyebrows:
I did what's called "Blocking them out".
(the eyebrow on the right side of the screen is done)
The reason you do this is to not make them so prominent when the make-up is on, and to ensure you have eyebrows left after you rip off (liquid) latex.
How it works: Carefully apply Spirit glue, when tacky use a Popsicle stick or spatula to press the hair in a downward motion to make the bump of the eyebrow disappear. Then you apply wax over top- and repeat all the steps again.
Prosthetic WAX:
And this is where it got tricky!
As you saw in a previous picture, wax comes in a tub. It's very solid until heated. I used a Popsicle stick to scrape out a chunk, I then rolled out the desired shape with my lightly covered baby oil hands (You'll need it, it's very sticky!) The heat of my hands made the wax malleable enough to shape. Once I made two identical shapes (one for each side of my face). I prepped my face for application.
First, I used an astringent facial cleaner to ensure my face was free of natural oils. Next, I held the shape up to my face and traced around it so that I knew where to put the glue. I used pen for this because I knew I wouldn't see it under my dark make-up anyway. Then I applied Spirit glue to the inside of the tracing. I tapped the glue with my finger to activate it and make it tacky. Once tacky, I used a cotton ball to cover the glue in a fine "fluff". The reason for this is that it gives the wax something to "grab" onto when glued.
After it's stuck in place, the blending begins...
This step to put it frankly, SUCKED.
(This is the part that Life laughs in your face!)
Unless you are in your teens, your skin is not what it used to be. Every time I would smooth out the wax edges, my floppy skin would create a wrinkle. I wanted it blended perfectly (cause I'm retentive like that) but I had to make a choice; Not so smoothly blended? Or wrinkles?
Making TWO of something out of wax AND having them be identical in size and placement was almost impossible! I called this "Close enough"!
After I had the wax in place and smoothed out, I covered them in liquid latex. I did this to give a smoother transition to where it connects to my face, help hold it in place, and make it a little more durable in case I got bumped.
Before applying make-up, I changed into my costume (A dress that could only be put on by going over my head.) and put in my plano contacts. Typically contacts are done last, but because I don't wear contacts I tend to tear quite a bit with the initial insertion and I didn't want to ruin my make-up.
(I don't have any pictures of me actually applying the make-up because my hands were covered in black, and I was getting pressed for time!)
My face was done using a tube of greasy black lipstick. I wasn't liking the shine the lipstick gave it so I went over it with liquid matte black clown make-up. Once that liquid dried it started to give it a mottled almost cracked look (which I thought added to the look!) I used my black liquid gel eyeliner to color in the water line on my lower lids, and to paint the tiny crevices around my wax. I made my eyes stand out by adding a dark red creme color on the bottom lid and top lid. I then used a yellow creme in the corners of my eyes where they meet my nose.
I thought this looked AWESOME! It really gave my eyes a piercing effect!
To make the snake pattern on my face, I took that same gauntlet glove I had used for painting scales on the headpiece hosiery, held it up to my face in random places (remember: Imperfect is perfect!) and sprayed grey hairspray through it. My neck I sprayed with black hairspray, then applied the same snake pattern as my face.
Lastly, My Teeth
These are my real teeth. They are covered in Kryolan tooth paint that I had ordered off the net a few days prior. It is sold in 4 colors: Nicotine (brown), black, red, white. I used red and black for this costume.
Steps: Brush teeth, dry teeth, insert cotton under upper lip to keep lip off teeth, paint teeth, when dry, remove cotton.
I was loving the teeth!! I think it looked great! And stayed on perfectly!
It felt weird... felt like you had really dirty teeth!
FINAL LOOK:
Unfortunately, I don't have any before going out pictures (only the one you saw earlier without the snakes on my head). This picture was taken at 2 am after I've spent 6 hours in my costume. Overall, I felt everything held good. My teeth were still colored and it hadn't flaked off at all! If I could be retentive about anything, it would be the wax. You can see where it started to lift right at the corners of my eyes. It's because of me smiling all the time. (In hindsight, I should have smiled first before putting on the wax pieces.)
All in all, I thought it turned out well!
Between my 5'9" height, 2" heels, height of the snakes, I looked like a force to be reckoned with!
People loved my costume!
They asked to take my picture, and to have my picture taken with them. The most popular questions were how did I do my teeth, and how did I get the snakes to stand out.
The BEST question of the night came at the end...
A sincere man came up to me and apologized for asking, but he asked:
"Are you a MAN or a WOMAN?"
REALLY???
LOL!
I was going to end this there, but I wanted to add just one more thing...
REMOVAL!
3.5 hours to apply...
1.5 hours to remove!
(This picture cracks me up- I think I look creepier here than with the full make-up!)
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
