Make-it Monday: Halloween Costume 2013 pt. 2, Shopping

Lots of dead plants and animals!

This is the second post in my costume-creation series for Halloween 2013. This year, my wife and I are going as sort of fey beings. She is going to be the Raven Queen (no relation to the 4e D&D entity) and I plan to go as the King of the Forest.

The working sketch for reference

The Wife and I began our Halloween preparations in earnest this weekend with a trip to our year-round costume supply store, Display and Costume. While I didn't find a whole lot to add to my costume, they did have a couple useful bits.

We had picked up the animal pelts earlier in the summer during a trip to our local ren faire. We also had a pretty substantial bolt of fleece-lined fabric hanging in our closet from Halloweens past. I picked up a garland of fake leaves from the Halloween home decor aisle at Display and Costume. I plan to cut it up and layer it to form one of my pauldrons, while the furs will form the other.

Guys can TOTALLY wear tiaras!

I also picked up this elven-looking tiara thing that has an interesting leaf pattern in it. I think it will serve as a good decorative element in my headpiece. Right now, the plan for that is to take a costume-grade leather and fur pilot's helmet that is currently in our Halloween storage to serve as the base for my "crown". We will attach the antlers to the helmet, which should be substantial enough to keep them in place. I can then wrap the tiara around the front to create a border effect. I'm thinking it might also be cool to weather the tiara using a wash of gunmetal grey paint, and perhaps to enhance the leaves with some metallic bronze paint.

Finally, I picked up a cool Celtic-looking clasp, that will be perfect for securing my cloak.

The Wife made significantly more progress than I did. She acquired feathered ear cuffs, some cool lacy gloves, and a bunch of sculptural mesh and craft foam. She has started assembling the frame of her collar, which looks pretty awesome.

The Raven Queen's collar begins to take shape.

Last, but not least, on a subject unrelated to Halloween, but definitely related to Make-it Monday, I finally picked up some new brushes for mini painting.  I got a 2, a 1 and a 0/3 round, as well as a 4 flat for drybrushing. I did a little practice run painting eyes on one of my unpainted minis, and I definitely feel like I have more control with the detail brushes. Now I just need to figure out how to get my paint the right consistency... with consistency.

New brushes!

So Halloween is now officially "in progress". I'll keep you posted as we acquire more supplies and start diving into the costume construction!