Halloween!

I love Halloween.

I really love Halloween.

Mom started making me my costumes when I was very young, and I've always worn homemade outfits, never store-bought ones.

Mid 1990s: The Red Death	I'd seen Roger Corman's Masque of the Red Death and fallen in love with Death's outfit. So, we made it. That's it on the right (the photo was taken in 1999, in the hallway of the dorm I lived in at the time). The sleeves, in case you can't see, are scalloped. I thought for SURE that I'd be scarred for the rest of my life from burning my fingers with the iron trying to get the scallops in properly. It's a great costume, although it's very hot and the full-face and hand makeup gets to me after a while. Also, it tends to leave me looking chapped for several days, as the red makeup invariably seeps into my pores and won't come out. In the five years that I wore it regularly, only ONE person recognized it before being reminded of the Corman film.
2001: Cardinal Fang Cardinal Fang says: CONFESS!!!!!!	In 2001, two friends and I decided to go to a big local Halloween party as Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition. For those of you so unfortunate as not to be familiar with the show, here's a quick summary: Monty Python's Flying Circus was a totally insane sketch show back in the early 70s, which specialized in absurdist humor. The Spanish Inquisition sketches involved three cardinals trying to interrogate people, usually with no success. In the first sketch, the lack of success was due to Cardinal Biggles (don't ask) bringing a dishrack instead of a proper rack. The second sketch had them using a comfy chair and soft cushions as torture devices. Anyway. To read the full sketch and see cool photos, go here. I was Cardinal Fang, which seemed apropos, since Terry Gilliam (who played Fang) and I went to the same college (although not at the same time). Also, according to our Cardinal Biggles, I'm better at making Fang faces. It took about three weeks of concentrated sewing to get all three outfits together, and was such a PITA that it took six years for me to get up the energy to do another costume. Part of the problem is that we could only find a cassock pattern that was actually for real priests, so it had inset sleeves and inverted pleats and about four jillion buttons. As a result, our outfits looked fantastic, but they took ages of work. Click the pic to the left to see more photos.
2007: Judy Nails: Snakes (Guitar Hero II)	Guitar Hero is one of my favorite video games of all time. Judy Nails is my favorite avatar, and I really liked her alternate outfit in GHII. It rawks! So I decided to do it for a Halloween costume, as I thought it would be awesome. It was a bit problematic - I had some issues with various aspects of the outfit - but it came out great. Click the photo for more pix, including reference photos from the game.

You can tell two things about me from this page: 1) I love red. 2) I have a hell of a time picking costumes people will actually recognize.

Wallpaper from here.