Harpy Costume with Body Paint and Wings

HARPY: Classical Mythology . a ravenous, filthy monster having a woman’s head and a bird’s body.

Below are some instructions on what I did to accomplish this harpy costume for Halloween 2011.

Step 1: Plan It Out

I first started out with a sketch based on some good ol’ Googling of harpies.  I particularly liked the ones in World of Warcraft.  As you can see, my final product evolved a bit differently from the sketch (colored wings became a bit too time consuming):

Harpy Costume Sketch | Breanna Cooke

Step 2: Make Giant Wings

The frame is the most critical part to having awesome wings.  I commissioned the help of an expert in wing-making, Danielle Hurley.  Her craftsmanship is top-notch and the frame fit me perfectly.  I’d highly recommend contacting her if you’d like some wings.  Check out more of her work on her website or her blog.

To support the feathers, I made a frame from chicken wire and glued it onto some black canvas.

I used black turkey quills and started applying from the bottom up.  I ordered 500 feathers (250 of each wing side) and probably used about 300-350.  I also used bits of black down from a feather boa to mask the transition of quills at the top of the wings.

Step 3: Make Bird Feet

I built my bird feet on top of an existing pair of boots that I knew were comfortable.  It helped that they already had pointed toes.  I used green craft foam to shape the toes and hot-glued them on.  The talons are fake bear claws. The bear claws were more proportional to my body than fake eagle talons.

I painted the green foam with brown paint so it would all match. Then I covered the boots in tan liquid latex.  In hindsight, this may not have been the best material, but it gave it the rubbery skin-like texture I wanted.

   

I painted the final boots with acrylic paints (again, maybe not the best type of paint since it kept cracking).

Step 4: Paint Yourself

I painted myself with professional grade body paint using a sponge and brush.  I usually use the water activated cakes from the Paradise line by Mehron since I can buy them locally at Norcosto in Dallas. I also order online from Silly Farm when I have more time to spare.

The fangs were from a Halloween shop. I recommend going for the most realistic ones, even if they cost more. The nails were also from the costume shop and glued on with nail glue.

Step 5: Go Scare Small Children or Become an Object of Envy at a ComicCon

Dallas Sci-Fi Con 2012
Photo credit:
John Hunter
www.hendrixhunter.com

Neytiri from Avatar costume with body paint

Apparently blue is my color!

This year’s costume was Neytiri from Avatar.  I decided to use body paint instead of liquid latex like my Mystique costume last year.   I did the majority of painting myself, though I needed help with my back.  Here is the final result, but keep scrolling down if you’d like to see more photos of the process.  The professional photo is courtesy of T.J. Hall Photography.

Close up. Full body paint costume for Neytiri from Avatar. Photo from T.J. Hall Photography | www.tjhallphotography.com

Full body paint costume for Neytiri from Avatar. Photo from T.J. Hall Photography | www.tjhallphotography.com

Face closeup for Neytiri from Avatar

Backside of body paint.

Paint

I purchased a “Pandora Kit” from SillyFarm.com.  They kit included all the blues I needed, and it worked perfectly for painting a full body.  I also purchased some glow in the dark paint so that the white dots would glow (if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I mean).

Starting out the painting

Painting Progress

Closeup of arm details.

Costume

I made the beaded arm bands by painting Mardi Gras beads and sewing them onto  elastic bands.

Painting Mardi Gras beads with acrylic paint

Closeup of arm bands.

I purchased the wig online.  If you search for “Deluxe Neytiri wig with ears” you’ll find the same wig from various vendors.

Feathers added to the braids of the wig.

I made the outfit from scraps of fabric and a bikini bra top from the fabric store.  I made the straps by braiding fabric and I stitched fabric onto the front of the bra cups by hand.

Bra top from fabric store.

Straps made of braided fabric.

Top with fabric attached.

Weekend project: vegetable planter box

Ok, so this isn’t exactly a graphic design or costume project…but there was painting/staining involved, so I guess it counts!  I found some great plans for a vegetable planter box on StarkSilverCreek.com.  Be sure to check it out if you’re interested in making your own.  I submitted my end result and here’s the post on StarkSilverCreek.com featuring my version of the planter box.

Mystique Costume with liquid latex

I fulfilled my dream, I was Mystique from X-men!… I know, I take Halloween WAY too seriously.

I already have red hair, so that was the easy part.  The hard part was painting my body with liquid latex!  I’ve outlined some thoughts on applying liquid latex, so keep scrolling on down!

My Mystique costume

Closeup of my Mystique face

Reference photos:

I researched a bunch of Mystique images and I opted to follow the face and hair of the movie version.

Reference for Mystique face

And I followed the clothes and body of the comicbook version.

Reference image for Mystique's clothes

Purchasing Liquid Latex:

This was my first time buying liquid latex.  I purchased liquid latex from www.liquidlatex.com and this was my order:

32 oz. Blue liquid latex – Since I only painted half my body, there was at least half the jar left over.

2 oz. Blue sparkle – I’d highly recommend mixing this in to the latex (rather than applying on top) for your last coat or two.  It gave the latex a really luminous sheen.

4 oz. Body Wash – Highly recommend this too!  At the end of the night, it instantly helped remove the latex that was caught in my hairline and in my arm hair.

4 oz. Shine Spray – Must have! The website FAQs are absolutely correct.  Rubbing on the shine spray as the last coat removed all the tackiness from the latex. Without it, the latex sticks to itself.

Liquid latex application tips:

• Allow a lot of time! It took me a around 5 hours. That includes application and drying time.
• Consider a layer of white latex.  Since the latex is translucent, your skin color will show through if you don’t put on enough coats.  In my case, I had to apply 5-6 layers of latex before it stopped looking blue/green.  I think a layer of white latex would help tone down your skin color and only require 3-4 coats of blue.
  

  2nd coat of liquid latex and it still looks greenish

• Armpits are tricky. Once you do your armpits, you can’t put your arms down until you’ve applied the Shine Spray. The latex will stick to itself and will start ripping once you lift your arms. I don’t know how to improve that aspect.
• Wow, it’s stinky. It’s especially hard to apply around your nose and eyes because the ammonia fumes are really harsh. If you’re allergic, it will not be fun for you.
• A bit of a stranglehold. The latex will shrink and feel like wearing a tight rubber glove. It was a little alarming when the latex on my neck tightened.  If you don’t like wearing chokers, you will not enjoy the feeling of latex on your neck.
• Comes off fast…for the most part. As long as it’s not in your hair, the latex peels off really quickly. I had some stuck in my hairline, but rubbing on the Body Wash helped rinse it out quickly.

The Mystique Face

To make the scales on my face I cut out pieces of blue craft foam and stuck them onto my face with liquid latex.  Then I painted over the scales with liquid latex.

To create the scaly face, I glued blue craft foam on, then painted over with latex.

The finished product!

Freshbooks.com: Great for the designer who dislikes the invoice process

If you’re like me, you’d rather be designing instead of invoicing.
I’ve seen Freshbooks publicized here and there by many designers, so I finally got around to setting up my own account.

Some of the things I like:

• It’s FREE to try out with up to 3 clients.
• Easily create invoices and send via email, ground mail, or save as PDF
• Clients can pay online (you just have to set up an online payment gateway, like PayPal)
• Track time for a project and synchronize with the invoicing.
• And as with many accounts these days, you can personalize it to match your branding.

Thanks Freshbooks for helping designers be better at invoicing

My post-Big (D)esign Conference to-do list

I recently attended the Big (D)esign Conference in Dallas and could not say enough good things about it!  I took pages and pages of notes on web design usability and user behaviour and thoroughly challenged by brain to delve deeper into user experience and interactions.  I’d expected to come away with a long list of design websites to look up…but instead I came away with quite a long reading list of books relating to human psychology.

Here are some of the books mentioned by some of the conference speakers (I’ve linked the titles to the books on Amazon):

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

What Makes Them Click by Susan M. Weinschenk

Designing Web Interfaces by Bill Scott

About Face by Alan Cooper

Mind Hacks by Tom Stafford & Matt Webb

What is Strategy? by Michael Porter

Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen
Phew! That’s quite the summer reading list!

#bigD09

Hooray for a green online printing option!

I just found a promising option for sustainable printing:  www.greenerprinter.com!  I received their package of samples and it all looked great.
Aside from a nice website here are some of the features that caught my eye:

• Use soy and vegetable-based inks
• Gloss, matte, and uncoated papers have a high percentage of recycled content.
• 100% wind-powered thru Renewable Energy Credits (how cool is that!)

Let me know if you’ve printed with them! I can hardly wait!

www.greenerprinter.com

Free screen sharing with acrobat.com, it works great!

As a designer, there are times when it’s just plain easier to show instead of tell.

Adobe’s ConnectNow screen sharing is a really easy to use resource…and it’s FREE!  I learned about it in an Adobe webinar about Creative Suite 4.  You can have up to 3 meeting members and there’s plenty of functionality. ConnectNow is handy because it uses the Flash plugin to run.  Since most users have the a Flash plugin installed, there shouldn’t be any problems to get going quickly.

To get started:

1. Set up an account and you’ll have your own personal “meeting room” link ex: https://connectnow.acrobat.com/yourmeetingroom.
2. To start a meeting, go to www.acrobat.com and login.  (If you have CS4, you can launch right out of Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.)
3. Send the link to your participants.  They just create a user name and enter your “meeting room.”
4. Enjoy your meeting!

There are lots of “pods” within for your use in the meeting, including:

• chat
• whiteboard – good for brainstorming, participants can write on it too!
• webcam
• audio conferencing

There are also a lot of other great file sharing resources on acrobat.com.  Check it out when you have a chance!

This is a screenshot of the participant's interface. The large center area will disply the moderator's screen.

CRM Email Marketing Add-ons..from a designer’s eyes

There are a lot of email marketing tools out there, so be sure you have your list of requirements ready before you try to research.

In this case, I was looking for a third-party add-on for Microsoft Dynamic CRM 4.0 so we could send HTML emails (remember, I’m thinking from a designer perspective)

My email marketing criteria:

• Fully interated with CRM (so it “looks” like it’s part of the CRM)
• WYSIWYG editor and template builder (Think of it like the text formatting toolbar in you email, like Hotmail or Gmail)
• Image/asset library (A place to view and store your images)

If you’re in a similar situation as myself, here are some of my finds:

Exact Target
www.exacttarget.com

• YES Integrates fully with CRM
• YES WYSIWYG editor & template builder
• YES image/asset library

c360
www.c360.com

• YES Integrates fully with CRM
• NO WYSIWYG editor & template builder BUT you can upload your own HTML templates, so if you have a web designer to create templates, then this could work for you.
• YES image/asset library

Eloqua
www.eloqua.com

• pricing structure is geared towards companies with large marketing lists, so it didn’t turn out to be the best solution for us.
• YES Integrates fully with CRM
• YES WYSIWYG editor & template builder
• YES image/asset library

Vtrenz
www.vtrenz.com

• pricing structure is geared towards companies with large marketing lists, so it didn’t turn out to be the best solution for us.
• YES Integrates fully with CRM
• YES WYSIWYG editor & template builder
• YES image/asset library

I’m sure there are more out there, feel free to add a comment if you think I’ve missed something.

How Twitter helped me

I’ve been reading a lot of articles about Twitter, but this one is “The Ultimate Guide to Twitter” from WebdesignerDepot.com.

I’ve also been reading various articles about the uses of Twitter:

“10 Examples of Creative Twittter Uses“

Examples of Twitter Help

I wanted to add my own example of how Twitter can help:

I had been working in the Microsoft Dynamic CRM 4.0 to implement html email templates, but was having a lot of trouble. Various forums indicated that there are email marketing add-ons to the CRM.  So I went back to Microsoft’s site to see if they offered a solution.

After an live online chat with a rep on the MS CRM website, and an unsucessful phone call, I saw that they had a Twitter account. Knowing that people tend to respond faster on Twitter, I gave it a shot…and it worked! See my images below…

Twitter can be about people helping people, without the worry of emails lost in the junk folder, phone calls, and excessive formalities.

My question on Twitter to MS CRM

Example of a helpful response on Twitter.