Cosplay Costume: Sookie Stackhouse from True Blood

This weekend began the Halloween celebrations began. Being a fancy dress fan Halloween comes as an opportunity for me to share my love of costumes with those close to me.

My friend Philippa was having a Halloween house party, several of my friends from work were going and Philippa was nice enough to let me bring my husband along too.

I have wanted to dress a Sookie Stack house for some time now but haven't, partly because there hasn't been an appropriate event, but also because I was a bit to large to fit into my denim shorts...

Luckily for me the party was at the perfect time and taking up running meant that those shorts were a good fit again.

The key to Sookie's look is the blonde hair, pale pink lip, a summer dress or her Merlotte's bar work uniform. I decided to go for the more iconic outfit and invested in a t-shirt and apron that were branded Merlotte's Bar and Grill. These came as a set from eBay and I was pretty pleased with them, being very picky I'd say the logo on the top was a little too big but all in all it worked out really well.

Here's Sookie's look:

My friend Sam asked me whether I was going to try and replicate Anna Paquin's trademark gap tooth look which I'll admit I had completely forgotten about until then. But after some careful online research I became aware of 'tooth wax'. It cost me £1.49 for a huge pot so hopefully it won't dry out in case I need to wear it again.

Overall it was a very comfortable way to spend an evening, even the wig lasted well which was a big surprise to me as it was snowed on earlier in the evening.

Mr Fancy dressed as Bill Compton (yey couples costume!) but that pretty much involved him wearing his work clothes and some pale face paint... Mostly because I forgot to pick up some fangs for him :(

The party guests totally excelled themselves! We had a zombie Mona Lisa, Mario and Luigi  an ewok, Princess Diana and so many more! It was really excellent work by all who attended.

Cosplay Costume: Black Canary (Or my day having more fun as a blonde…)

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Last week I made the trip to London to attend the MCMexpo. Advertised as London’s comic con and the largest cosplay event in the UK, I had decided that after a rather conservative effort as Victoria Hand last MCM that I was going to go for something a little more adventurous this time.

The event was held over Halloween weekend too so it seemed an even better time to flex those fancy dresscapade muscles.

For the Saturday I had decided to dress as Black Canary, the fishnet clad fighter with the sonic scream. She is featured prominently in several DC books, a member of the Justice League, ex-wife of Green Arrow and most famously known for her role in the Birds of Prey. Although I do particularly like the art of Ed Bene's in BoP but I decided to go for the more classic Canary look as seen in Green Arrow and Black Canary.

Canary Kick!

The main parts of her look are the blond hair, fishnets and boots combo with the black bodysuit and jacket.

This presented me with two challenges that I have never faced before:

1: Going Blonde

2:Getting to London in little more than a pair of fishnets and then walking around wearing only them...

The first was easy to address, I searched on eBay and found a Chinese shop selling cosplay wigs for around £12 with free postage. They had 1000s of positive feedback so I decided to risk it- personally I think the wig I received was excellent value for money, it completely covered all of my hair, was easy to de-tangle and surprisingly comfortable! Although it did take two weeks to arrive…

The second challenge was something that required simple nerves of steel. To get to London I wore a skirt over the ensemble but I found that once I arrived at the Excel centre seeing so many people in thousands of different types of cosplay that no matter what I would survive. 

(Interestingly glamorous people of a different inclination were also attending the Excel for UK’s Top Model I’m not entirely sure they appreciated the slightly strange attire of those of us at the Expo, although one lady did compliment me on my 'fabulous wig')

So here is the final look of the costume, I think it went fairly well :D

Most of the purchases for this outfit came from eBay, with the wig, biker jacket, gloves etc. The bodysuit is an altered swimming costume and the boots were my own. All-in-all it cost around £30 but it is mainly made up of items that I can wear again so I didn’t mind. Something I feel is important to add about this outfit is that I was actually wearing two pairs of tights. One pair of thick opaque beige tights from BHs to cover my legs and then the fishnets over the top- it made me much more comfortable and hides the sins much better than just wearing the fishnets!

Rather interestingly for me, one of my favourite comic authors Gail Simone was appearing as a guest at the MCMexpo on her first trip to London Comic-con. Simone is known for several runs on comics-including, most recently, Barbara Gordon's return as Batgirl in the DCnU52. But she was also the author for a long and famous run on Birds of Prey- the very comic my character was prominently featured in!

As a result of this I was reduced to utterly useless fangirl…

I met Simone at a signing table and asked her to sign my comics. I was incredibly nervous for no particular reason but I felt much better when she told me that I looked amazing and posed for a picture with me.

I noticed later that she had tweeted about a Black Canary cosplayer and replied to one of my tweets.

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‘Also there was a fantastic, adorable Black Alice cosplayer and a tremendous Black Canary cosplayer...both incredibly lovely. So fun!’ and ‘@JennieWhitwood Aw, you looked phenomenal! But I didn't get a picture of you! :('

I think that given this reaction I can judge my costume to have been a success (I hope :S). It was a real honour to get such a comment from a comic superstar- couldn't have been any better :D

During the day I was even asked by a few people to pose for photos, hopefully I won't end up on any of those bad costume blogs...

During the second day I dressed as a 60s style Catwoman (very loosely based on Julie Newmar) and I’ll post on that soon, until then…

Happy Dresscapades!