Dune - Part One (Costuming Arcs)

Ok Dune turned out to be really really long, so I'm breaking it into characters and costuming arcs. Costuming Arcs are going to refer to things like our Stillsuits and our Fremin Eyes because they cover more than one character, and Characters is going to be about the specific characters we did...

Please note that we don't actually have ANY pictures of our own from Dune. We've used the pictures posted on the Norwescon Flickr Stream. We've marked as Favorite any of us which can be viewed here.

Who: Paul Atreides, Channi, Reverend Mother

When: Before Paul has transitioned into the Muad'Dib; Desert Fremin

Who’s: David Lynch’s Dune (1984)

Dune was supposed to be a gimme to Guavious as he was been several forms of Bruce Willis over the years.  Frank Herbet’s Dune is one of his favourite selections, and it was a piece we all thought we could do right. What we weren’t banking on was a two week long debate on whether to do Movie Dune (David Lynch) or Mini Series Dune (John Harrison). The debate wasn’t over which story was portrayed better, but it was about which costumes were more iconic. Which costumes could you instantly look at and know “OMG DUNE!”. We knew we wanted to do the still suits but when you look at the two side by side they are two very different types of suits. After all was said and done, we decided on Paul and Channi in still suits, and the Reverend Mother from David Lynch’s Dune.

Stillsuits

The Still suits started out with an easy enough concept: black full body suit with strategically placed rubber pieces on top to mimic the “formed tubing” meaning to house the water.  We had found this fantastic rubber-like fabric that was sewn in a way to create “ribbing”. The only reason the rubber fabric and the armor worked together was ensuring that they stayed separated. If we connected the rubber portions to the spandex suit, the material would have buckled and the whole look would fall apart every time we moved. However by creating a “armor” suit with lots of Velcro and tabs, we created stillsuits that moved with our bodies. The Spice added was cinnamon. So basically for the whole afternoon, I smelled realllly good! We only coated Channi's costume with Cinnamon because of the timeline we envision. He's all Mau'deep now so he's gotta look royal while she's still true to her character...

               

Fremin Eyes

The Fremin Eyes proved to be another complicated task. But the return on investment was more than worth it! We started out by purchasing a bunch of different blue contacts to see how we could get the best Spice-infused blue. Paul’s eyes could be a little duller as they change throughout the movie, but Channi’s had to be full on BLUE BLUE BLUE. We decided we liked the look of the UV blue the best after all our trials. But word to the wise, if you’re not used to contacts work your way up to them!  Both Paul and Channi were not comfortable wearing contacts and tore through quite a few before finding a system. They also battled on who could get theirs in the fastest although that seemed to be a long, long contest. To get the whites of the eyes to reflect a blue look, we decided to layer Channi’s eyes with blue eyeliner to make them pop even more. We went through Sephora and Shoppers Drug Mart’s entire stock of blue shadows and eye liners to finally settle on Annabelle’s Mineral Pigment Dust in Azure. The process of getting the whole eye to look blue involved using a Pointed Liner brush and layering on thin coats of the shimmery powder. We dipped the brush in, tried to tap off the excess, lined the eyes, and then walked away. Repeating the process about a dozen times until the look was achieved. If you try to layer on more without waiting, too much of the powder fell onto the face, resulting in blue specks of shimmer all over.  It is good to have tissues on hand of a nice soft face brush to dust off any excess. To keep the look strong, before even starting, we used an eyeshadow primer on the whole eyelid to ward off oil build up and smudging.

The Body Jewellery Shop

http://www.bodyjewelleryshop.com/online_store/halloween-contacts-1180.cfm

Annabelle’s Mineral Pigment Dust in Azure http://annabellecosmetics.ca/Produits/Eyes/Eyeshadow/Pigment-Dust/Pigment-Dust---Azure.aspx

Sephora Brand Classic Pointed Liner Brush #17

http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P189141&categoryId=S4906&shouldPaginate=true

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion (Original)

http://www.sephora.com/browse/product.jhtml?id=P284715&categoryId=B70

Wonder Woman - It's all in the Details

Leading up to Halloween, I was sort of stuck on the sidelines. Most of the costume involved sewing which is Dejathoris' main domain. Don't get me wrong, I kinda know how to sew, but I can't whip up a costume, let alone a skirt in less than ten minutes like she can!

So I decided to undertake a very detailed three day process. To ensure proper nail preparedness (dry nails before each step) I waited overnight before moving on. Turning my nails into Wonder Woman-esque Nails! I thought I would share the pics:

- Step One, Paint with base red.Keep in mind, I always use a base coat to help prevent staining and to assist in proper nail health and all that jazz. I am particularly fond of Essie's All in one Base.

- Step Two, using reinforcements, a tip I picked up on Jezebel.com cover the base of the nail. That way when you're painting the tips you get the perfect curve. Reinforcements also don't peel off the base coat, like tape will in many cases.









- Step Three, I WANTED to use those sticker templates to paint gold stars onto each nail. However, those things are garbage. They rip right off and are essentially a one nail use. Unless I'm using it wrong. However, this is the second time I tried, and I got the same results. After all that work,  only one nail got the gold star. I then painted stripes inbetween the blue and red.

- Step Four: TOP COAT! If you're going to spend three days painting your nails, you're going to want your work to last!