Vitruvian Man Costume

Over the weekend, I hosted a Halloween Party in conjunction with my 21st birthday and wanted to make a kick-ass costume to look the part as a host. I also wanted it to be something that hasn't really been done before. Halloween is my one favourite occasion of the year and I love DIY so I decided to make it a task to source for an elaborate costume idea I thought was a good enough idea and turn it into reality as best as I can. A huge factor that decides my costume for every year is the length of my hair because wigs are expensive and I also want it to look as natural as possible. I scoured the net for inspiration with the intention that his year's costume should either be a witty pop culture or art reference :-)

So I got to it! I started sourcing for materials to make me seem naked without actually being naked (if I were a ripped gym boy I would've just bought paint and contoured by abs and probably spray paint a good ol' leaf to cover my bits but I'm not) so I sourced for a nude lycra that covered every part of my body.

Initially, for the extra arms and legs, I had planned to buy and dismantle an old mannequin but I couldn't find one and I was worried that not only was it going to be heavy, it might not even be able to secure onto my body AND I might not get the same colour consistency as the nude lycra I'll be wearing. So I decided to get 2 nude lycras - one for me to wear and another to stuff with cotton and create into a kind of backpack to wear.

The challenge was thrilling! I had to get four light wooden flat sticks and inserted them into each extra limb and created a cardboard centre with strong cloth tape to sort of be the backbone holding the four sticks together. It was then sewed and secured and I added 2 elastics to be able to wear it as a backpack. Past Halloween experiences have thought me that it is important to be able to be comfortable (AND to get into a cab and go to the loo easily too hah).

The plain nude lycras, were then painted with Jacquard fabric paint. I did quite a bit of research before purchasing this particular fabric paint because there were people saying that fabric paint on synthetic fabrics might stretch and crack. To prevent that, I got a really talented friend to paint me while I wore the suit. It worked out amazing, no cracks and it dried really fast! The colour was also consistent and strong.

The last part was the circle and square. For the circle, I got a water hose and put layers of metal wires through the tubing to give it structure before securing it with layers and layers of cloth tape. I didn't manage to get it to be a solid free-standing hard circle (my tube was too limp; but I learnt that if I were to built circular structures in future I could try irrigation tubings that people use to make DIY hula hoops) but it worked out in my favour because I was able to stretch it up and down as I got in and out of cabs through the day/night! The square was just four plant sticks I got at a value store that I secured with tape at the corners. They were both put together with black string.

All that's left was to put it on face paint (Snazaroo) on the day itself and that's my attempt! :-) (it cost me about $70 to make)