Community Post #164 Whenever I am called upon to create a costume, I don't tend to do anything too fancy. Lacking the strange amount of knickknacks and recognisable apparel that I can cobble together to dress as some character from that thing I know is often pretty difficult. I mean, the absolute best I can manage for a costume off the top of my head is what I happen to be wearing right now: a green t-shirt and tan trousers. In essence, I'm dressed as Shaggy from Scoobie-Doo. If I could be bothered to find a wig or bleach my hair, maybe it would look OK but for anyone that's seen my face on the various streams and appearances will remember that I have very dark, deep set eyes that are often smudged with black from my copious late nights. As such, I would look like Evil Shaggie, where he's come from another dimension where he's incredibly brave and has a case of malnutrition that never seems to change his figure. I've met many people that just throw on the Portal Jump Suit or just so happen to have these elaborate Elizabethan coats or even leather jackets, allowing them to transform themselves into Anime character I don't recognise. "Oh? This highly detailed, show accurate thing? I just threw it on, this morning." I, on the other hand, don't buy clothes very often. If I do, I do so for their function as clothes mostly but I'll be swayed if they have something cool on them. This has lead me to buy a lot of T-shirts and very little else. I have some pony shirts and a Pikachu shirt that's bright yellow and a t-shirt that combines Portal and the 'Dark Side of the Moon' album cover but no Assassin hoodies or Corsets or Ruffled Coats that just so happens to look like a character I think is cool. I'm also not overtly flush with cash whenever I want it. I would wonder over to the nearest costume shop and maybe try a Steampunk look or look for something neat that my chubby frame could fit into. If I am to costume, I will costume properly, dammit! So, to get round a lack of apparel and money, I often have to be clever. One success is to turn up in pyjamas and an old dressing gown. Bingo! Arthur Dent from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was rather simple but it was a character I liked from a book I liked. I was pleased with it. Saved a little time at bed time. Just add towel and your all set Though, I've been interested in cosplaying for a while. Problem is, I'm not a super skinny guy with lots of money and time to blow on a costume. I'd want to really stand out and do it properly like the costumes that always blew me away at conventions but I have dark features and long, dark, incredibly-hard-to-dye hair that makes something I can do between everything else I need to do a little harder. I don't always have time, but I want to play with this stuff. I want to see what it's like to actually go a little more nuts on a costume than my usual fair. So, that's what I did. A society I'm part of did a pub crawl where everyone dressed up. I wanted to join in and my idea was a Demon Possessed Human. That way I could just wear something normal and then try to alter my features only slightly to look more...eerie. I already look kind of evil if I smile and look at someone right. And going as The Joker, seemed to easy. Instead, I decided to go with some simple face-paint and some contact lenses. For under £15, I was going to have a costume that I could really have fun with. The result? Neat huh? Ruffle up my hair, wear something normal and paint my face a little to make me look a little paler. Perfect! Add a little black to make sure my eyes look extra unsettling and with my new contacts in, I'd be a kinda weird costume idea that I really liked. Simply because I look somewhat normal until you actually look at me. And it worked! I had people looking and remarking at how odd the effect was. No one got 'Demon Possession' and got more 'Zombie' or 'Whitewalker' (whatever they are!) but I seemed to be making waves with really not that much. I was pleased with myself. Initially... Fun Fact: I cannot see anything in that photo. Yes! In my rush to get a decent costume together, I'd forgotten a rule of contact lenses of this nature: if it covers your iris, you can't see much. If a bright light hit my eyes, I would be blinded as the white contact lens would absorb that light instead of my eye, effectively blinding me. It did make my act a little more believable as I held my hand up to make sure I could actually, bloomin' well see and avoided the light as much as possible. Not that I could see much better in darkness. Everywhere I went now appeared to be covered in a thick smoke no one else was all that bothered by. The visual equivalent of these, perhaps? This is to say nothing of how hard it was to put these things in. I have never worn contact lenses before this and the anguish of trying to get what appears to be an innocuous piece of thin plastic to sit on top of my eye was a fiddly ordeal. First, I had to figure out the technique. I was trying to hold both eyelids open as wide as I could then pop it on with a free finger but eventually pulling down my lower lid and letting it sort of sit on the bottom of my eyeball worked out. Oh! And the blinding, excruciating pain as your eyeball seems to freak out about having something shoved onto it. Just blink until your eye gives up and carries on as if nothing ever happened. My eyes were bloodshot when they first went in because they were angry at me for trying to put this weird crap on them without asking. It did help with the overall theme of the thing though... I did have fun turning a few heads just with one really cool detail about my appearance. And I wasn't killed trying to walk anywhere, which is a huge bonus because I'd hate for my first real go at dressing up to end in the hospital, convincing the attending doctor that my costume was cool enough for a broken leg and a few cracked ribs to be worth it. Ah well...maybe next time I'll have some cash in my pocket to maybe try something more outlandish. Providing I don't spend it on computer parts, games and cider first... I'll stop buying them when they stop looking awesome! (Yes, I did snag one of these!) - Post-Season Survival Guide Let's bring this back. It's about that time, I think. As per before, I will be suggesting things to try out while the next season is being made. Any suggestions you'd like to offer up should be sent via PM to me (@Tyro ). Here's something exciting that's been getting some buzz: Sonic Utopia. This is a fan-made project that attempts to genuinely create a 3D Sonic game faithfully. Heavily inspired by the freedom of movement Super Mario 64 gave, this attempts to do the same but with the blue blur in a way that no sonic game has achieved properly ever since. I highly recommend trying it out here. Everypony.com is not responsible for any erection that lasts for longer than an hour while playing For anyone else that likes weird or terrible movies, I'd like to introduce a couple of my favourite series to you. I might not always dig I Hate Everything's content but he is typically pretty fun. He has a sense of humour that doesn't get old quickly and injects a tired, dejected delivery to perfectly match the correct response from the movies he's had to endure in The Search for the Worst. I'm strangely fascinated with terrible movies so his thorough analysis of what doesn't work in these things is an engaging watch for me. I recommend his Cool Cat review. It's great but it also brought him the most trouble, which is all detailed on his page too. Not quite Digital Homicide levels of appalling but noteworthy none the less. In a similar fashion, I've also adored a series about an icon of music, fashion and celebrity which I can't remember ever having much relationship with: Madonna. Never listened to her music actively though I don't pay attention to Top 40 tracks and I never have. I remember the Spice Girls more than Madonna. But! I still find it fascinating to go through her filmography. Mainly because it's both varied, eventful and mostly horrible train wreck after train wreck. CineMadonna by Todd in the Shadows, charts the lows and lower lows of Madonna's movie career. From Desperately Seeking Susan all the way up to Swept Away. Check it out! I genuinely learned about someone I apparently ignored for most of my life. Swept Away being notable for being the movie where she gets slapped around by the guy she's trying to kiss here. And it's still not the weirdest thing in her filmography. So now that it's almost 4AM, I'm going to be a good fox and get to bed. Night night and I hope your Halloween is a safe and fun one! Avoid cavities and alcohol poisoning.
