Menos Grande Costume

I win. No question!

This is my Halloween pic submission- it's not MY costume, but I DID make it With slight amounts of help by Lauren (the friend it was for), of course. Mainly consisting of me asking her to "hold this!" or "Cut that!"

It actually looks kinda messy on the inside... But you didn't need to know that The outside is all that counts in a costume like this!

Backstory: So Lauren had come to me 3-4 weeks before Halloween, saying she knew I liked to sew, and was wondering if I could help her with a secret project... We worked on it all this time, and NO ONE was the wiser! Except Brittney(another friend) who noticed I mentioned a "super secret project" in my DevART journal and put the pieces together a few minutes after Lauren appeared wearing the Menos

Apparently, the costume is slightly heavy... It IS all mounted on a heavy dowel rod... (DON'T ASK ME HOW I MANAGED THAT- ONLY REPLY WILL BE "String and duct tape!!" LOL)

The arm that you see is tied to the dowel rod, and hangs down unless she picks it up to gesture with it. The mask is model magic, the glow stick is actually a combination flashlight/glowlight from WalMart that can light, glow, light and glow, and blink the glow on and off The fabric is from two sheets, and we stuck on a viewing hole using a snapped dowel rod, 2 pencils and a pair of black tights. The head is rounded in the back because of a dowel rod with styrofoam shapes on it, and I tied the top to the middle of that rod to keep it from sliding off. The top of the head actually sits on there like a giant cowl, but tends to slide off. The mask... We had last-minute trouble attaching it and getting it to stay, so I ended up punching holes in it and tying it together with thin hemp cord... Luckily, it doesn't show very much

The arm used a dowel rod for the base, a plastic skeleton hand from a Halloween store(the hands came in sets of 2- we bought both, figuring it was worth not having to shape the hand!), a cardboard sock (? maybe?) form that my roommate threw out (SHH! Don't tell her I steal her trash! LOL ) and two plastic bags to give it shape. Then we just used the fabric I trimmed off the bottom while hemming it to form a sleeve... Duct tape helped SO much on this project! I attached everything using screws and one nail where a screw wouldn't have fit... I still need to bend the nail into place so that it holds together better!

This was a highly improvised costume- I kept having to change plans! I'd think it would go together one way, then I'd get there and have to change it! Then that wouldn't work, and I'd change it again. Then I'd think of another one (within a minute, usually) and realise it didn't work, and change it again, saying "Okay! New plan!", which really confused Lauren because she didn't know there was a problem with the old plan in the first place I went through at least 3 different skeleton ideas, 4 red light ideas, 2 attaching-the-cloak-part ideas, 4 put-the-mask-on ideas, 2 stabilize-the-mask ideas... And so on and so forth. Also, I had little access to tools- just a power drill/screwdriver. I needed needlenose plyers, a yarn darner, more dowel rods (?!! How could I have possibly needed more- we had like... 3!!), a hammer, and a vice would've been nice... (Oh no- rhyming on Halloween! )

So I feel very accomplished, considering this is the first mask I've made, this is the first costume piece I've used model magic for, this is the first puppet-style costume I made, and my first time ever using power tools on my own

Sorry if the pictures are grainy a bit- took them on my phone in a dimly-lit room
Left picture is taken at an angle while the glowstick was flashing, right picture is taken from WAY back (This must be at least 10 feet tall!) and on level with... Sort of

Menos Grande belongs to whoever owns Bleach...
Lauren owns the costume...
I have FULL RIGHTS to the awesomeness of the idea (When I say idea, I mean the idea of how it all goes together, because it was originally Lauren's idea to make )

Best part of Lauren wearing this: When she first walked in, everyone was like, "O.O... Who is that?!" and then people started yelling, "Kill it! Hollow! Kill it!", and a couple people started poking at the cloak part with their toy swords... I was too busy laughing to help her get away from them LOL