Step 4: Coat - Netting

For the coat, I started with a black trench coat that I purchased off of Etsy.

I didn’t really have a plan, other than I wanted to look like the coat had been underwater (going with a drowned theme). I used the following image as a reference and as inspiration.

I started by adding three layers of netting to the back of the coat, sewing the top part of each layer to the shoulder and back portion of the coat.

After affixing the netting, I started sewing pearls and shells of various sizes to the netting. I also hot glued some rubber insects to the netting.

This entire process took A LOT of time, particularly the top layer of netting. Any spare time I found would be spent sewing pearls and shells to the netting. I wanted it to look like the coat had been underwater for a while accumulating everything.

Step 3: Clothing and Accessories

Fast forward a few months to the summer of 2023, when I realize I’m not going to have time to learn to sew AND sew all of the clothing for my costume. As such, I decided to just buy what I needed, and try to use what I already have.

The clothing and accessories ended up rounding out to include the following:

• Black corset (purchased from Amazon)
• Black pirate shirt (purchased from Amazon)
• Black sash (already owned)
• Black leggings (already owned)
• Black boots (already owned, per FOD 22)
• Black trench coat, to be decorated (base coat purchased from Etsy)
• Fake plastic daggers (purchased from Amazon)
• Pirate sword (purchased from Amazon)
• Drinking horn (already owned)
• Metal trident (provided by the folks at Lost Forty) (Outfit, sans coat and accessories)

Step 2: Head Form

Before getting started on my project, in particular the headpiece, I made a form of my head so that any construction of the headpiece would be accurate to my own head’s dimensions. (Read: I have a very large head.) I created the head form without the assistance of anyone else; if I had had another person to help, the end result may have been a little more polished and finessed. But because I only intended on using the head form for this one project, I could get away with cutting a few corners in the construction process.

First, I wrapped my head in cellophane while being very careful to make sure I had air holes around my nose and mouth.

Second, I wrapped tape around the cellophane and used a sharpie to draw a loose cutting pattern onto the tape. Again, because I was doing this myself, I did not put tape over my eyes or nose.

Third, I very carefully cut the cellophane/tape patterns off of my face and head. I then drew more lines onto the pattern for further cutting and labeled each piece of the pattern.

Fourth, I cut out each pattern piece from the cellophane/tape form into separate pieces, then traced these pieces on to 5mm foam.

Fifth, after all pieces had been traced onto foam, I cut out each piece and glued it together with contact cement in accordance with the original pattern.

You can see that I was a bit sloppy when it came to the eye holes and nose. Rather than have separate eye/nose holes, the form ended up coming together with just one big hole in the front, kind of like a nightmarish helmet.

Sixth, I plugged some of the gaps with foam clay and then sprayed the whole thing with black Plasti Dip.

The end result was a little funky and misshapen, and if this had been something that OTHER people would see, I would have taken a lot more time and care with it. Given its intended purpose, however, it was just fine.

Step 1: Inspiration

The theme for this year’s Festival of Darkness was pirates (plus zombies). After a bit of mulling about what to do, I found my inspiration with Vraska from Magic: The Gathering, particularly pirate Vraska from Ixalan.

Taking it a step further, I blended the idea of Vraska with Davy Jones from the POC movies and decided to make the head tentacles look like tentacles from an octopus.

My original plan included the following:

• Constructing a headpiece
• Creating prosthetic gills and barnacles using modeling clay to construct a cast/mold
• Sew all clothing except boots, to include top, corset, jacket, tights, and sash

For face/body makeup, I wanted to paint my face, neck, and hands blue, with the goal of matching the blue color of the paint to the blue color on the headpiece.

Some caveats to all of the above:

• I have a sewing machine, but do not know how to use it. The intent was to use this project as a way to learn how to use my sewing machine.
• I knew about the theme a good 10 months or so before the event, and thought that I would use that entire time to work on a costume. I saved the image of Vraska above as the background on my phone so that this project would constantly be on my mind.