Gollum Costume

Hello! I'm wearing the Gollum costume. Truthfully, I've long sensed a resemblance between myself and Gollum --- I can open my protruding large green eyes quite frightfully wide, and was somewhat scarred as a kid with a bald head, waiting for longer than most little girls to have hair. So I think there was some psychology to work out in making this costume. ;) I also enjoy creating costumes that allow me to step outside of the confines of what society says women should look like and allow me to take on a different character, such as Gollum in this case. To create my Gollum costume, I cut the legs off an old pair of white tights and sewed a semi-circle, cutting off the excess, to create a scull cap. I made 2 slits on the side to stick my (and eventually, fake) ears through, and numerous little slights on the top to feed some of my stringy clumps of hair through. I then painted the cap with acrylics (stuffing it first with plastic garbage bags to give it a form), layering a mottled mixture of ashy pinks, greys, blues, whites and peaches, and drawing in some forehead wrinkles. I left that to dry overnight and then started cutting up an old oversized grey sweater to create the top and bottom of Gollum's ragged clothing. I sewed a loose straight stitch to gather the front of the top, then stitched together the sides, shoulder strap and skirt. I cut further fringes/torn edges of both the top and the skirt and then painted a layered mixture of brown, grey and white acrylics to dirty them up. I purchased thin rubber werewolf/yoda ears and then cut them to a more Gollum-appropriate shape, hot glued the front and back of each ear back together, and then painted them with acrylics to make the tones in the scull cap, looking at photos of Gollum as a reference. I also cut a large cardboard ring shape, spray painted it gold, and attached it to a chain I had so I could wear it around my neck all night. I bought some black "tooth out" wax to cover some whole and partial teeth, to capture Gollum's rotting mouth. Finally, I spent quite a bit of time layering on mixtures of white, pink, yellow and blue/grey water-based cake powder face paint on my face, chest, arms, back, waist, and legs, accentuating the shadows around bones to create a more gaunt look. Finally, (the most fun part), I adopted Gollum's facial expressions and posture to complete the look. :)