This is part two of my daughters Plague Doctor Halloween Costume. If you want to see Part 1 click here. This post is going to focus more on the costume accessories.
The Dress
Another lucky find we got the dress at Goodwill. It was plain, black, long sleeve and fit her perfectly! I was thrilled with it. The only downside though was it was made out of wool which gave it a really authentic look but we also live in Texas and even in late October it can be hot (I was not wrong she was sweatin like a sinner in church)
The Boots
Goodwill find… I live at Goodwill basically. They should pay me to write these blog posts.
The “Staff”
This little add on was a really head scratcher for me and we were just about to ditch it from the ensemble. I couldn’t find anything that was going to work in a pinch and I really didn’t want to make anything from scratch. I had already hit my fabrication limit. Eventually I stumbled across a curtain rod at Goodwill and I was like “sold”
The Incense Ball
For the incense ball I used a broken hamster ball. When I went to buy it (at Goodwill) the guy at the counter was like “you know this is missing the lid right” … he almost wouldn’t let me buy it till I explained what it was for. It was a weird conversation. There needs to be a goodwill for cosplayers. A no judgement zone.
I plugged up the air slats and made kind of a mess out of it. I drew on a couple of bad swirly designs with some puffy paint and let that dry. Once I knew it would hold water (for the next step) I spray painted it gold and distressed it with black acrylic paint.
Ok this part was fun. Kate wanted to go historically accurate on the costume and she loved the concept of the incense balls and lanterns the Plague doctors carried around. We came up with this wild idea to a ball that would hold a small piece of dry ice and we would pour hot water over it and it was steam up. It actually worked too! The effect was really cool but it was short lived and at the end of the day it was too much work for little pay off.
The Lantern
This was last minute addition to the costume because I already had the incense ball and I didn’t want her to have to carry around too much stuff. I saw this discounted solar lantern at Family Dollar (you thought I was going to say goodwill didn’t you?) and I snatched it up. It was already gold and distressed so I didn’t have to do much there. The solar component sadly didn’t work so I had to rig it up with some battery operated tea lights. This ended up being kind of cool because the tea lights flickered giving the whole thing a candlelit vibe.
The Chest Strap with Potions
I found two old and distressed leather belts and looped them together on themselves to do this chest strap thingy. I cut them where the met above the hit and glued them together. I added some of my googly eye “rivets” for effect.
The potion bottles were from Hobby Lobby… but don’t worry I didn’t pay retail. I got them on a 50% day so they were $1 each. I just added some water and food coloring. I tied the tops of them with some brown necklace cord I had laying around.
The metal brackets that attach them to the belt are just picture frame hanging brackets or D-rings. I had these laying around.
In hindsight I should have found a way to affix the strap because the weight of the glass bottles kept dragging the belt down and it needed to be adjusted constantly. Probably shouldn’t have gone with glass bottles filled with water and picked something lighter but I really liked the effect.
Conclusion:
Kate looked awesome and she got a ton of compliments. She won the award for scariest costume at the party and she was thrilled. At the end of the day that’s why I put so much effort into these things. I always spend too much time and money on her costumes but it makes her so happy.
I didn’t keep a running total on this costume (I usually do). There were just SO many small pieces. I got a lot of stuff from Goodwill on this costume but it was NOT in one trip. Kate and I talk about her costume months in advance and I find things as I go along.