Why are you looking at me like I'm a piece of meat?

Saturday night I had this costumed event for my day job to attend. My friend David was kind enough to be my date. He went as a California Raisin, and I endeavored to make this costume completely from scratch so that I could go as a "piece of meat".

I designed the costume on paper first. Using a female body template, I drew out the shape of a steak from the breast line down, and included basic shoulder straps. The basic framework looks like a thick, wavy A-line dress. On paper I could tell that just the dress was not going to be enough to get the message across. I needed something more... a hat! I drew out what looked like the top of a bone to sit atop my head. So far so good. I also wanted to include a small interior pocket on one side of the dress so that I could carry around individually wrapped pieces of beef jerky and tell people to "eat me".

I constructed the framework of the steak/dress out of flame-retardant foam rubber. I used spray adhesive to fuse all the seams of the foam... which was suprisingly easy but not completely sturdy. I purchased several yards of a bright yellow spandex to create the outer and inner "shell" of the dress because I knew that the raw foam would probably absorb the paint or not paint very well. FYI- when you spray paint synthetic foam, the chemicals in the spray paint (similar to acetone in nail polish remover) tend to break down the plastic in the foam, making it crunchy and hard to the touch. I didn't want that so I resolved to cover my steak/dress with the spandex first.

Now, ideally, it would have been much more professional for me to sew all the pieces of fabric together first, fit them snuggly around the framework of foam, and stitch around the edges to finish the piece off before painting. But, I was limited on time, and knew that if I got the fit of the spandex wrong, I would not have enough spandex or time left for a second chance at it. So, what I did was cut loose pieces of spandex and use the spray adhesive to simply glue the fabric to the foam. In my tiny, closed off apartment, I'm pretty sure I got a little high off the fumes... but that's neither here nor there. After securing all the fabric to both the inside and outside of the shell of the dress, I was ready to paint.

On the next day, I took the dress outside with a tarp to begin spray painting. As soon as I started, I realized I'd made a huge mistake. Remember my little FYI about acetone? Well, the spray paint began to affect the spray adhesive I had used to fuse the fabric to the foam. the edges of the fabric began to lift off and become "unglued". I did my best to press down the edges as i painted, but resolved to just have a really sloppy finished product.

I layed down two colors. One was a muted brown primer to cover the bright yellow color of the spandex. Next was a brighter red for highlights. After the spray paint dried, I took the project inside and used some gesso and acrylic paint to add the finishing touches. White was used to create the look of fat around the edge of the steak. I used a blue paint pen to make little veins in the fat. I am totally not an artist... but I did my best.

Next, I needed to create the hat. I used an old phone book and cut a bunch of little strips of paper. I had just inherited a manequin head (thank you Cat!). I covered the mannequin head with a plastic bag to protect it and made a little paper mache hat. For the paper mache, I simply mixed some flour with water, dipped the strips of paper in the mixture and went to town. After creating the cap, I inflated two small round balloons and taped them together, side by side. I affixed them on top of the cap and also covered them in paper mache. Next, alls I had to do was wait for the paper mache to dry.

The next day was Saturday and the paper mache hat was dry. I painted it a flat white with gesso, and added some shadowing with a brown acrylic paint. It kinda looked like the top of a bone, and totally "made" the costume.

An elastic band was stapled to the hat so that it would stay on my head.

But, I realized all too late that I had forgotten to add the pocket for the beef jerky! I just stapled a small strap to the Slim Jim can, and made a little purse to carry them.

The end result was:

Not very many people could tell at first what exactly I was supposed to be. I don't know if that's because it really just looks like a poofy dress, or if it's my artistic skills not adding up to par.

Also, not too many people were impressed by the beef jerky joke. Maybe in a parade or a large crowd it would go off a little better.

The shortcomings of the costume really annoyed me. I KNOW I am better than this. I was disappointed I did not have enough time to make sure all the edges of the fabric were secured before I wore this thing out. I am going to keep it and will make improvements before I wear it again. I will hand-stitch all the edges in the future and maybe even get someone who can actually paint to help me create the "look" I really want.

I was so worried that the elastic on the hat was going to cut off circulation to my head that I did not make it tight enough. I ended up having to check it and keep it from falling off all night. I will adjust that next time.

Also, I completely forgot my camera all night... so I don't have pictures... but I think I'd rather post them when I have a better-looking finished product!