Sunday, October 31, 2010

Halloween Costume #2: Ninjette

Happy Halloween!

I've been reading Adam Warren's Empowered comic series and two weeks before Halloween, decided to make the costume for Empowered's best gal pal, Ninjette.



She's a beer-drinking ninja princess from New Jersey, hiding out from her clan. Aside from the beer drinking and actual ninja skills, I thought it would be a straight-forward costume for me to make and wear in two weeks.



It turns out that I only had one week to actually complete the costume since work sent me to China the week before Halloween. Compared to my Tali costume, Ninjette was almost a sleepwalk. The patterns were based off of a mish-mash of various pieces of clothing I owned. I did have to make my shorts twice because I assumed a stretch factor on the stretch vinyl that wasn't quite true. Thankfully, I was only off by a seam allowance width. I used the same kind of fabric paint for Tali's hexagons to make the Ninjette logo.

The arm and leg wraps were just long strips of the stretch vinyl. After this photo shoot, I ended up getting some black gloves and thigh-high socks to put on underneath the wraps so that when they slipped, it wouldn't look so obvious. There's still some refinement to do with that process, but when I went out to the club, I carried black electric tape for emergency repairs. I wore black toe shoes (not shown here) to complete the outfit.

The long ponytail is not mine, it's a wig from the Halloween store. I bought some nail polish pens and painted my nails while I was hanging out and waiting during my China trip.


I'm a bit bummed I ended up assembling the necklace in reverse order. But the comic rearranges the order frequently enough that maybe it's not that big a deal (except to my sense of detail). I also should have taken some darting into account for my halter top, but I didn't have time to adjust it. It still works but isn't as correctly fitted as I would like.

While Tali was showcased at work during the day Friday, I ended up wearing Ninjette to both parties we went to for Halloween. No costume contest for me. I figured anyone who didn't recognize the Ninjette character would just assume I'm wearing a generic ninja girl costume which isn't remarkable enough to warrant a stage performance. It was still a fun costume to make and wear. I especially liked the fact that 1) I could see clearly, 2) I wore the most comfy shoes I remember wearing for a costume and 3) I could dance.

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