Welcome to November Hivelanders. I hope those that celebrate had a wonderful Halloween night. Mine was uneventful; juat handing out treats to little ghosts and ghous. And no, the Corpse Bride did not meet toddlers at the door. Stay tuned for that one.
Today's cosplay was for online friends, family, and followers. But mostly for me. I love Tim Burton movies and having recently gotten into cosplay, well of course, Emily would be high on the must do list. If you have not seen Corpse Bride and enjoy animated gothic, light horror, you are missing out on a gem and a first rate example of the genre. Like everything Burton touches, it is a masterpiece.
So now onto the cosplay build. Step one to recreating this look is painting yourself, just about head to toe, in blue body paint. I grabbed some inexpensive blue paint from the mart that rhymes with ball. And it was pretty good actually; gave decent coverage and resisted pigment shedding. But it also smelled like burnt rubber; effective but probably also telomere shortening.
The white and black body paint I used was a little more expensive, but still as good; and slightly easier to remove. My bathtub looks like I murdered a smurf. So I will have to invest in multiple colors of the more expensive stuff to save my skin for future build:)
Back to painting myself ... all but what the clothing covers, one arm and one leg, and the neck goes blue. Trace out your bones before you begin painting your one arm and a leg; then do your best to color in the lines. Give yourself a couple hours to complete the arms and legs. You will also shadow out both sides of your neck, from jawline to collarbone, to created a hollow, animated look.
Finish up with your body before you begin the face. First step for the mug will be to glue stick down your bushy eyebrows because Emily has high thin ones to say the least; your eyebrows are where her eyelids lids live. Your eyebrows will take color better covered in glue and don't worry it washes off easy enough. Don't use gorilla or crazy glue gals.
Trace out the eyes and then work on the rest of your face. Leave the eyes for last. For the blue shading, I ground down some hair chalk I had lying around and went to town on the face and neck to add contour. You can't overdo this.
The Corpse Bride does have a luscious lip so go with a striking pink. Use a thin brush or liquid liner to apply the thin, wavy eyebrows and then work on the rest of the eyes. Add the white, circle them with dark blue and then use that same liquid liner to draw on lashes. You will be getting very close to the second hour mark by the time you are finished. Don't worry if you think you have failed the make-up ... when you add the wig, the magic transformation happens.
The wig I also purchased from not-quite Ball Mart. The corset is my hand-dandy corset that I cover with the needed colored tape to suit any number of costumes. Everything else was courtesy of the dollar store or our local thrift store. Thrifted wedding gowns are still pretty expense, and so I recommend looking in the drapery and linens baskets for cheap lace and white fabric. Most of my gown and veil once was window dressing. I did fine a nightgownthat could have worked on its own really. I gave the costume a quick rinse in blue dye ... like minutes ... for the most part it was effective ... though I did use blue filters ... some of it came out a lavender.
If I were to attempt this again; I would do a better job on the rib cut out and not forget to have teeth show throw the cheeks and of course I would do something about the shoes. They are a cool two tone ... and in most light look silver, but here they shine gold. The final touch to the outfit were some silver butterfly pins.
We are done ... now go act dead:)
Here is the link to the accompanying instagram reel. I am looking to build my footprint there; and so I would appreciate a follow; drop me a message and let me know where you are coming from HIVE and I will return the follow:) You can click on the image; it will take you to the reel too:)
https://www.instagram.com/reels/DQcEOMPiYc2/
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