Almost Halloween...

So, it's almost that time again. Time to put together a costume for Halloween. Last year, I put together a fairly decent Daft Punk costume, in what I decided to term "80%" fashion. That is, I try to rough in the idea and get it to a good looking, recognizable appearance, without worrying about 100% accuracy. For example, my Daft Punk costume consisted of a leather jacket, pleather pants, leather gloves with metallic duct tape appliqués to approximate the robotic-looking gloves and a tinted motorcycle helmet painted silver, rather than mocking up a helmet that is exactly the same shape as the original thing. I also attached an LED scrolling message belt buckle from ThinkGeek to the inside, so I even had scrolling messages. The overall look worked really well, and took a lot less effort than if I had built up the helmet from scratch.

This year, I've decided to take a similar approach to a costume I've wanted to try for a while: Venom. I kicked around the idea of making this costume before Spider-Man 3, so I'm not trying to replicate the Venom from the movie. I'm more interested in the somewhat amorphous, hulking "Eddie Brock" Venom from the good - ole days of Marvel. However, I'm willing to draw inspiration from, well, pretty much anywhere, so I'm looking at the old comics, Spider-Man 3, anything I can see from the upcoming Venom movie, as well as other universes and even fan pics online.

As I see it, there are a few targets to hit with the 80% Venom goal, here:

1) A mouth full of teeth. Venom has a disfigured, over-sized maw full of mismatched horror-teeth - think shark, crocodile, canines... very primal.

2) Hulking size, musculature. I will need to build upward and outward from my own physique, making a "muscle suit" of sorts. I will need to especially build up chest, shoulders, back, arms and calves.

3) Tongue. Venom has a long, nasty, prehensile tongue. We're talking 2-3 feet of nastiness here. Bonus points if I can get it animated. Toying with different ideas on that one.

4) Black, shiny coloration. I am planning to build up the costume with whatever I can find laying around, then skin it with something cheap (probably muslin fabric), and then, finally, coat the outside with shiny black vinyl paint. I am toying around with the idea of doing some sort of hex-like or muscle striation pattern on top of the paint, but that will be one of those "if I finish this thing and find myself bored with lots of extra time on my hands" things. Basically, not likely to be done.

5) Claws. Venom has large, pointy claws. I plan to modify some gloves for this purpose, but I'll have to remove them to get any work done.

6) Feet. Actually, one thing that will be difficult to accomplish is some decent Venom feet. There's not a lot of detail, just large, muscular feet, but since footware is typically more detailed than that, it's going to be interesting trying to get the right look. I've considered cloth over boots, but if it covers the bottom, you lose all of your grip and you will tear up the cloth pretty quickly.


Also, it's probably worth noting that the above list is a list of major items in order of importance. If I can't solve the feet problem, most people would probably forgive simple black boots without a second thought. If I can't get to the claws, black gloves would suffice. The teeth, the tongue... those are pivotal. The shiny black will help to sell the look. Mind you, not everything is listed above; this isn't a checklist of everything to do. I would have to use some shiny white vinyl paint for the spider emblem and eyes, as well as some red for the tongue and mouth, but that's sort of assumed to be part of the other parts.

This is the costume I plan to wear to work for the costume contest on October 29th, as well as while helping to run the ACM programming competition at LSU on the 30th. Who knows, if it goes well, perhaps I'll find some party or competition to go to for the 31st.