Halloween Special Part 1

Halloween, one of the oldest holidays second to Christmas that dates back two thousand years to a Celtic festival known as Samhains. The Celts that occupied what is now Northern France and the United Kingdom held the belief that the evening prior to their new year (November 1) the boundary between the land of the dead and the living would blur. The spirits of the dead would return to the world of the living causing mischief and mayhem to crops and the like. However it was believed that the presence of these spirits would grant Celtic priest's visions of the future. To celebrate these predictions the people would come together for a bonfire where they would sacrifice animals and burn crops, while wearing animal heads and skins.

While the vast majority of us are less likely to go parading around in animal heads, the opportunity of dressing up as something or somebody else with a bunch of other people is just too good to pass up. And if you're someone like me, the process of creating the costume is just as fun as dressing up.

This year I decided to go as the corpses bride. A decision that was solely based on saving money since I already had the wedding dress from a previous costume. In summary I never did save as much money as I had hoped. If anything what I saved in the costume I ended up spending in make up and accessories. No regrets though since the result looks amazing!  See below.

The pile of make up and supplies including rubbing alcohol, rotting flesh prosthetics, various blue, grey, black eye shadows and black eyeliner, white cream and a pair wicked eyelashes.

A wig that I constructed by hand. It took and obscene amount of time, effort and yarn to make this nightmare of a wig. Looking back I should have forked over the $25 for the corpses' bride wig than go through the misery of wasting so much time on braiding this stupid thing.

Was strongly debating whether or not the fact eye lashes coupled with the flesh wound was too much. In the end I thought, go big or go home.

The completed picture after an hour of applying make up. There are a few kinks I need to work out but I'm satisfied with how it turned out.

My version of the corpses bride has a bit more gore than Tim Burtons'. If you're more interested in the elegant version there is a good video on youtube made by audfaced. However if it's all blood and guts that appeases your appetite be sure to check out the following link, which provides a list of supplies and videos needed for applying zombie make up.

That's it for now.

P.S- Full costume will be featured on Halloween.