Oaklandstuck: Trolls In Black.
Antarctica Starts Here. » Antarctica Starts Here. 2014-07-18
Summary:
I happened to be in the Bay Area with Amberite for the Fourth of July this year, and as we are wont to do we got it into our heads to do a little road testing of some costumes we've been talking about for a while, namely the trolls Sollux Captor and Terezi Pyrope from the webcomic Homestuck playing Men In Black.
If you're not interested in our costuming notes feel free to check out the photographs we took of ourselves or not as you like.
Crossposted to the content category because there are how-to notes after the cut.We assembled our costumes out of random stuff I had around the house (one of the perils of cosplay is collecting strange odds and ends because "I could use that in a costume someday"), with a few trips to the local thrift store, the dollar store, and Michaels during the previous few days. Historically speaking MIBs wear black (or nearly so) business suits, which aren't difficult to put together. Late last year I ordered a pair of Sollux Captor glasses from Akujinscos on Etsy and was so impressed by them I wear them occasionally as sunglasses. His quality's top notch so I highly recommend buying his custom glasses for whatever costume you're working on. I'd ordered a pair of Terezi Pyrope glasses a few weeks ago but due to their backlog they didn't arrive in time. I resorted to using tiny bits of double-sided cellotape from the dollar store and red Celebrate It cellophane giftwrap from Michaels to turn my glasses into passable replicas of Terezi's. I was able to see more or less normally through them the rest of the day but had some difficulty with fine detail due to the hazing effect caused by the thin non-optical quality plastic layer.
In hindsight we should have made the horns more than a day in advance. We used two packages of white Crayola Model Magic
to sculpt horns following this tutorial. One 2.5 ounce cup of white Model Magic was enough to make one pair of Terezi horns or two pairs of Sollux horns (one big pair and one small pair). We embedded loops of floral wire in the bases of each so we could later attach them to our wigs. As it turned out letting them sit overnight wasn't sufficient. Even after using a hair dryer on them for half an hour the next day after giving them all night to harden, the Model Magic had only hardened to the consistency of partially stale marshmallows. Not soft but somewhat firm and distressingly pliable. The horns had sufficiently set that we were able to follow the process in this post (Terezi) and this post (Sollux) to paint them with multiple coats of Modge Podge and acrylic paint, which gave them additional structural integrity but not as much as we'd hoped. I also discovered that, by hanging the Terezi horns upside-down by their mountings to dry, gravity pulled them off of the floral wire time and again which damaged the insides and made them less stable. I think they can be repaired with hot glue (which I don't have any of at the moment) but I think it'd be more worthwhile to make a new set from scratch and use a different mounting technique. Amberite had no trouble with his Sollux horns during construction or at any time that afternoon.
The night before we'd done our nails with Covergirl Outlast Stay Brilliant color 243 (Goldilocks) purchased from Target. One coat of this color and brand of nail polish seemed sufficient to match canon troll nail colors. After drying overnight it stood up to the rest of the costume assembly process. We recommend putting a final coat of clear nail lacquer over it, however, because the makeup we used bonded strongly
to sculpt horns following this tutorial. One 2.5 ounce cup of white Model Magic was enough to make one pair of Terezi horns or two pairs of Sollux horns (one big pair and one small pair). We embedded loops of floral wire in the bases of each so we could later attach them to our wigs. As it turned out letting them sit overnight wasn't sufficient. Even after using a hair dryer on them for half an hour the next day after giving them all night to harden, the Model Magic had only hardened to the consistency of partially stale marshmallows. Not soft but somewhat firm and distressingly pliable. The horns had sufficiently set that we were able to follow the process in this post (Terezi) and this post (Sollux) to paint them with multiple coats of Modge Podge and acrylic paint, which gave them additional structural integrity but not as much as we'd hoped. I also discovered that, by hanging the Terezi horns upside-down by their mountings to dry, gravity pulled them off of the floral wire time and again which damaged the insides and made them less stable. I think they can be repaired with hot glue (which I don't have any of at the moment) but I think it'd be more worthwhile to make a new set from scratch and use a different mounting technique. Amberite had no trouble with his Sollux horns during construction or at any time that afternoon.
The night before we'd done our nails with Covergirl Outlast Stay Brilliant color 243 (Goldilocks) purchased from Target. One coat of this color and brand of nail polish seemed sufficient to match canon troll nail colors. After drying overnight it stood up to the rest of the costume assembly process. We recommend putting a final coat of clear nail lacquer over it, however, because the makeup we used bonded strongly