Twisty the Clown Costume

From the moment he appeared on screen last year, I knew I had to have a Twisty the Clown costume. I wanted it both to wear to conventions, and for Halloween. I’m not big on buying costumes, so I had a long road ahead of me. In terms of cost, I lost track along the way, so I’ll just say, “expensive.” (but totally worth it!)

The biggest problem was, I’d never sewn anything before, and this outfit calls for a lot of it! There are plenty of clown outfit patterns out there, so I looked at a bunch, and settled on the one which I felt was the closest, and made a few modifications, to better fit the look. For his bag, I just came up with my own pattern, since there’s not much to it.

The outfit, and bag were all done with a decent weight, cotton fabric; I wanted something with a little heft to it. Altogether, I made the pants, shirt, neck ruffle, and bag. I also took an old pair of Doc Marten boots, and painted them to match his. Leather gloves which look similar to his were obtained from a Civil War costuming company, and the fingers cut off, somewhat midway. The two red pom-pons were made with yarn, and the yellow one is a little different. This one is a fuzzy boa, wrapped around a ball of aluminum foil, and then green and white feathers were added to the middle, making it look exactly like his.

Obviously Twisty wouldn’t be Twisty, without his iconic mask, so that had to be made as well. This was sculpted on a head form, molded, and cast with resin. After that, it was painted to look close to the one on the show.

Next up, Twisty wears a clown “scalp” on his head. There are several ways of going about this piece, but I decided on the hard route. On another head form, a basic scalp piece was sculpted, and then an epoxy mold made. This time, the piece was cast with gel-filled silicone, and painted with silicone paints. This gives it an actual skin-like look, and feel. It’s squishy! The hair was individually punched, using synthetic yak hair, normally used for fishing lures.

Finally, Twisty also needs weapons. On the show, he uses some vintage juggling pins, and sheep shears. I couldn’t find juggling pins for cheap, so I had one made from wood, on a lathe. This was molded, and cast with plastic resin, then filled with rigid foam, and painted. For the shears, it didn’t seem too safe to walk around with pointy, metal shears, so these were also molded, and cast with a semi-rigid plastic resin.

I wore the costume to work, but left off fake blood. For Halloween party festivities, I gored it up with Ultimate Blood, from smooth-on.