Neytiri Avatar Costume

Upon hours of trying to figure out what to dress up for Halloween, I finally decided. I stumbled upon a picture of the movie Avatar and knew that was what I wanted to become (decided this less than a week before Halloween). The only part of my costume that I didn't make was my shoes..and here's how I did it:

I had to go to quite a few stores before I finally found everything I needed. I happened to find some blue body paint for really cheap at Goodwill, and found a larger tube of blue, along with some white paint afterwards at a costume store called Spirit. My next stop was Walmart, which I told my friend shopping with me, "Don't be confused about what I'm about to buy..it will all make sense in the end". I happened to find the perfect shade of blue pants in the clearance section for a whopping $7. I also bought blue stockings (that come in one of those "gumball" containers, which only contained one knee high because the other was either missing or stolen, but that's all I needed anyways..and it happened to be blue!), black yarn, a pillow, glitter, and a brown towel. Next stop? Michaels! There, I bought some beads, feathers, fur, fake branches, felt, and a wooden dowel. Here's how it all came together:

Pants:
I put on the blue Wal-Mart pants and started panting away. I painted blue tiger stripes, took the pants off and put them on backwards so I could paint the other side. Also, I added some smaller white lines, because that's how I noticed Neytiri's (the girl blue avatar) skin was.

Top:
I wasn't about to go topless and just paint my chest alone, so I took a white cami (that happened to rip earlier in the week and I almost threw it away) and tucked the straps in my bra, and folded the bottom so only my chest was covered. I painted what was showing in the same way my pants were.

Purse:
This was definitely my favorite part of the costume. I wasn't about to take my normal purse out, so I made my own. I folded the fur I bought in thirds, hot glued the sides, and hot glued a long strap out of braided hemp that I found from home. I took the wooden dowel and broke it into thirds, hot glued them so they would stick out of the bag, and glued feathers to the end to look like arrows.

Flap/tail:
I had an old belt that I almost got rid of but I'm glad I didnt! I cut the brown towel and glued it to the belt for the front flap and glued the tail to the back. For the tail, I took the knee high (perfect length), and stuffed it with the insides of the pillow (it was cheaper than buying stuffing), tied some of the black yarn to the end, and also wrapped some more yarn around the top, because that's how the tail looked like in the movie.

Bow:
I took the fake branch, bent it, and tied together each end with hemp. Conveniently, this was able to be hooked into my belt in the night if I didn't want to hold onto it.

Wig:
This was my greatest obstacle, because I didn't know what I was going to do for it until I was looking for something to use in the Dollar Store. I thought about wrapping my hair in yarn, or somehow pinning it to my hair, but I found a black hat and figured I could just glue yarn to it- and that's exactly what I did. I used the entire spool of yarn, braiding half, and using plain strands, and gluing it alllll over the hat. I tried to glue the braids to look like it does in the movie, and glued beads into the hair, as well as the feathers below the ears (the ears were cut from the blue felt, and painted to look like hers, then glued to the hat. By this time, it was about 11pm the night before halloween.


Right when I got home from work the next day, I started painting myself. After over two hours of painting, and added some glitter for a cool effect, I was almost ready to go. I put on all my accessories I had made, and also cut a strap from the leftover towel and tied it around my arm, and also wrapped some hemp around my wrist to look like her bracelet. All I had to do now, was have my friend help me paint my back.

Before we went out, we stopped at a bar to use their ATM. The bartender said I should come back for there costume contest, but unfortunately I couldn't because we were planning on going to a party that wasn't nearby. After the ATM, my friend and I went to our friend's house before we all went out Everyone was so impressed with my costume, and told me I would win the $500 for best costume. After getting my hopes up, there wasn't even a contest at this party. Even so, the party was especially fun, because everyone instantly knew who I was and I got compliments left and right. This by itself was worth it, besides the fact that I not only loved being blue, but an avatar at that. I love nature, and being outdoors, and honestly if I could be Neytiri in real life, I totally would. I was so sad to wash off the paint the next day, because that was the end of Neytiri. It was sad to see so much work go into just one night, but it was definitely worth it looking back at it.

A couple days afterwards, a friend who saw my picture on facebook showed the bartenders at the bar he was at pictures of my costume, bragging about how I "won" halloween this year because he thought my costume was so good. Even a couple weeks after Halloween I had people ask me how long it took me to paint myself from my photos on facebook. Even if I didn't win any costume contests this year, I still would agree with him that I won Halloween this year because of all the great reactions I got, and how amazing I felt in the costume all night long.