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ZombieCon NYC is October 12th 2013

Gather the horde cause the zombies are reuniting to scare the living bejezzuz out of unsuspecting civilians.

ZombieCon NYC 2013 is October Saturday 12th!

RSVP and splash on the blood liberally!

ZOMBIECON NYC 2013 

~ World War X ~

A scary, silly, slightly x-rated, shockathon rampage.

Zombie lore is growing like never before... Brad Pitt is investing, TV networks are thriving and Undead Chic is all-the-rage ... And somewhere along the way, all this slippery, scabby, brain-sucky fun got kinda sexy.  Or, at least it will be on...

Saturday October 12th

Noon til Nite

Manhattan Route TBA soon 

RSVP for info updates

- Email list & info

- Twitter

FREE early with donation requested at 5pm dance party location. 

THEME

Zombie characters from any zombie flick, show or comic - with a sleazy, bleedy, edge...  Main characters or those cameo'd and quickly killed... You cannot have an easier theme... Special spaztastic public activities designed for hilarity, hotness and horrification.  And Drinking...

ROUTE:

Manhattan with plans to flow through a certain comicy convention en route to the super special Zombie dance-party after 5.  Noon Launch spot TBA the week of 10/7.  Be there by 1pm for maximum fun or RSVP for updates throughout the day.

BRING: Comfortable walking shoes and extra zombie makeup/ blood to zombify others as we go... Zombies are infectious!

PARTICIPATE or beware. Looky-loo tag alongs are subject to explosive zombie barf.

ABOUT: 

This is Zombiecon #9 developed by a creative community that has crazy costumey fun year-around.  We have bloodied the Wall Street Bull, attacked Fox News and brought much irony to many public places… (We are more than a bar crawl!)  For more check zombiecon.com and kostumekult.com

Zombie costumes are easy and inexpensive. For more on how to prepare you costume visit my post on how to Zombify yourself! I also have a post for a zombie makeup tutorial. Do Enjoy!

Check out this awesome photo taken at last years event. It was taken by the talented Caryn La Greca. 
Take a look at her other photos from the event!

Photo Credit: Caryn La Greca

Love and Brains,
KostumeGirl 

How to zombify yourself. Making a zombie costume in a few easy cheap steps.

So you want to be a zombie?


Great! Join the hoards of seething undead, embarrass your family and do ANYTHING for free brains. But what will you wear?
I'm hear to show you how in a few easy steps you can look your Zombie best for ZombieCon or any other undead occasion.

Here are a few things you may need:
Serrated Knife or Exact-o blade
Face Paint (white, red, black)
Acrylic Craft Paint (about 60cents a bottle at Michaels)
Old clothing or costume
Bloody Scab ($4 at Ricky's)
Fake Blood


One thing to consider is when a living person is transformed into a Zombie, or infected, they will stuck forever wearing the clothing they were wearing at the time of their infection. So for example if one were a sexy nurse or a sexy construction worker, they would simple become a sexy zombie nurse or sexy zombie construction worker. Sexy is a given here. Start with your base clothing or costume. Hit up the thrift store or the back of your closet for items you do not want to wear in a "normal" situation again. Remember to dress for the weather too. Just cause you are no longer human doesn't mean you can't get a little chilly out there! Then let the fun begin!

Do not just use a scissors and cut zig zaggy shapes on the edges of your clothing. This is an amateur move. The clothing has to look like it has been ripped and shredded from chasing innocent people through the woods, stopping at nothing to devour their brains! Anyway I use a serraded knife or Exact-o blade and also rip the clothing by hand. Caution: if you go too crazy with the deconstruction of your clothing it will not stay on you anymore and the police will be more likely to bother you for unintentionally exposing yourself. Cut and tear a little bit at a time, trying it on, looking in the mirror and deciding where you need more damage.

Then begin the bloodying process! Get some cheap acrylic craft paint at the store in dark red and black. Don't get a bright fire engine red cause real blood does not look like that when it dries on clothing. Take the item of clothing in your hands, add two drops of red paint and one of black then rub the fabric together like you are scrubbing out a stain. This will give a natural dirt plus blood effect. DO add LOTS of blood around the tears in your clothing because this makes sense. DO add LOTS of blood down your chest as if it has been dripping there from the brains you ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. DO allow plenty of time for your outfit to dry before the event you are attending. Nobody likes wet paint in their car or on their couch.

Now your outfit looks good time to work on your makeup.
Watch the Sexy Zombie Makeup Tutorial here.
Start with a white or light grey base because after all Zombies are dead bodies. Add lots of black makeup to your eyes and a fair amount on your cheeks to make them look more sunken in. Fake blood - I have tried some however most are too sticky and never dry. I much prefer to use red and black face paint around my mouth and then add this magic stuff called "Bloody Scab". It looks like just that. Add it sporadically around your face and neck for optimum results. I think a detail that people overlook is that zombies have really dirty hands. Take the black face paint and rub on the backs of your hands as if you're just dug your way out of a fresh grave!


Congratulations! You are ready to go terrorize some civilians! Don't forget to stagger, gasp, groan, roll your eyes, get distracted by shiny things, let out a terrible scream for no reason and reek havoc in general. However try not to intentionally scare children, thats just not nice.



OXOX, Kostume Girl

More Mermaid Day 2011 Photos found

Thank you so much to all the photographers who emailed me with photos or handed me their business cards!

I could have never had such great documentation of my costume without you.

Mermaid Photo Framed by Armando ZubietaVisit his Blog, Website or Flickr.



Portrait By Jane Kratochvil© 2011 Jane Kratochvil



Kostume Girls by Chris Lord
Visit his Flicker known as Pixielated Pixels.



Photo Credit: John St John



Photo Credit:Phil Valcarcel

Photo Credit:Phil Valcarcel

Photo Credit:Phil Valcarcel



Photo Credit: Donald Lokuta

All Rights Reserved by Lagares


Photo Credit: Mari Lowery

Mermaid Day Parade 2011: Photos and Recap

Whoa Mermaids! What a day! It was long and crazy but it was one of the best Mermaid Days ever!
Photo Credit: Sean Hennessy
© 2011 Jane Kratochvil
I started my day EARLY. I actually got myself up, did my makeup and trekked into Manhattan to try and get on the CBS Early Show. Mermaids, Mermen and Sea Creatures were invited to be seen and promote the Coney Island Mermaid Day Parade. I arrived at 59th Street and 5th Ave around 8 am and was nervous to get out of the cab since I didn't see any mermaids right away. However after I made the cab driver creep around the block slowly I spotted a small school of mermaids and happy hopped out of the cab to join them. What a lovely group of ladies! I met mermaids who were also from Queens including a burlesque mermaid named Lula Rouge D'Amour. Ooh la la! They were so friendly introducing themselves and taking some pictures to capture the moment. We patiently waited and were finally escorted to stand behind the host and guests during a cooking segment. I positioned myself well and got on national TV. Woo-hoo! Check that off my bucket list. Then we listened to the actor who plays Spiderman on Broadway sing a nice song and then it was back to Queens to round up the rest of my mermaids who were not as keen to get up at the crack of dawn with me. Actually it would not really have been worth it. Its not like they interviewed us or anything.

After I looked at a few of the pictures of me from the Early show I decided to add some color to my skin because my costume was really blending into my skin tone and not popping. As soon as I returned to my apartment I started painting my skin pink. Quite a process since I only had small makeup sponges and I kept having to mix up more pink with my face paints. When my other mermaids started to arrive I was quite a sight in my bathrobe with pink skin. Then the glitter and gems exploded into action in my living room! My best friend Erin and I have been going to Mermaid Day since about 2005 so we are veterans. We were very excited to have with us two first timers, Melissa and Natalie. When you bring someone new to the parade, often they are worried about wearing too little clothing. We always assure them they will feel over dressed when they arrive in Coney Island and see some of the other very naked mermaids.

After a minor directional mistake that led us into Manhattan, we were on our way past the Verrazano Bridge to Coney Island! Since Mermaid Day is the busiest day of the year at Coney Island it can be very crazy and require more time to get everywhere. However try as we might each year we can't get out of the house before noon. We need more time to prep our beautiful selves! We did thankfully make it to registration before they closed and just as the King and Queen of the parade passed by us. This years Neptune King was the host of Man V. Food, Brooklyn native Adam Richman. The Queen Mermaid was hostess Cat Greenleaf of Talk Stoop with Cat Greenleaf.

It wasn't long after we found our line up spot in the Adult Artsy Marchers section that we were on our way! The streets were lined with hundreds of parade spectators. It's always a true mix of NYC from Coney Island locals to Japanese tourists. The weather was amazing so the turn out was huge. We marched, danced and waved all the way down Surf Avenue stopping for hundreds of pictures along the way. We passed through judging with relatively little fanfare, but I guess when there are 400+ entries in the judging, you simply must keep things moving or we'd be there till it got dark! Erin and I were announced as the Arrgh-ristocrats since that is the best I could come up with the day before the parade.
We were followed by Kostume Kult who put on quite a spectacle for the judges when they birthed or spawned babies in front of the judges stand while blasting Born This Way by Lady Gaga. Hope they win honorable mention for Gross out performance.

We saw some great photographers that we have met in years past. One of our particular favorites is Marisha Camp. She is a New York photographer that took great moody dark photos of us in 2009. She does party and event photography as well as portraits. Check out her gorgeous work. You will be captivated by her style and her subjects. Here is her photo of Erin and I.



Here are the photos that my terrific friends took with my camera. So glad they could help me out since I usually end up being too busy to take good ones.
I gathered as many business cards from photographers so I could include their links on my blog but if I missed you please email me at Kostumegirlscloset@gmail.com. I could really use some good close ups of my makeup and hair.

Kostume Girl joins twitter

I'm learning to use Twitter and its totally fun. I know I'm the last person on Earth, but I really didn't get it when I joined about a year ago.
Now I'm all about tweeting.

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SantaCon Recap

Santa squeezed his fat white a$$ down that chimney last Saturday, he found the jolliest bunch of a$$holes this side of the nuthouse.

What fun last Saturday was! Santa was out in full force.
The merriment could not be contained. The bars, parks, and sidewalks over flowed with fat men in red suits, Frostys, elves, toy soldiers and walking Xmas trees.
A few of my favorites:
Jesus in a birthday hat
Potato Latke
Hasidic Jews
Winter Prince (My Match!)

Such great creativity. Of course there were just plain drunk Santas. I saw one sleeping on the sidewalk around 4pm. Shoulda had a hearty breakfast, dude! West 4th street was a flood of Santas by the time I got there. We parked ourselves in The Four Faced Liar's front window with a beer to wait for some friends and watched wave after wave of SantaConers go by. People watching just does not get much better than this.
But on to my costume... Winter Princess, Queen Frostine, Ice Bitch whatever. Thank goodness for the warmer weather on Saturday because I was worried about having to wear a coat and basically ruin the whole effect of the costume. I layered some thermal shirts from Conway and tons of tights and felt pretty good. I always find that the excitement of that day keeps me the warm too. I really like the way the whole thing came out and I would absolutely wear it again. I even had my nails done to match!

The wig was the best part. I knew I wanted a windswept look and so I ended up buying styrofoam pieces (a cone and wreath) for volume and hiding them under the teased wig. That way I was also able to poke wire into the styrofoam to keep in the snowflakes and other decorations. I used bobby pins too and didn't have to do much hot glueing. It was fairly steady on my head and thankfully it was not a windy day. Throughout the wig I had 20 bright white LED lights that were run by a 2 AA battery pack hidden in the back. Over all the wig wasn't too heavy. The styrofoam pieces worked well but were not very durable. A full day of Santa fun can be rough and the styrofoam ring that was providing volume was in 3 or 4 pieces by 9pm. Revisions will need to be made to the structural support!
Make application started about 2 hours before I left the house. The White base from Ricky's I applied with a makeup sponge. Then I mixed a very light blue using Mehron Fantasy F-X face paint. I absolute love this brand of liquid face paint and I have been using it since I was 12 painting kids faces at the public library's summer program. The snowflakes were stickers from Michaels and I covered everything with a star dust powder by Mattese Elite (also purchased at Ricky's). Eyelashes on and we're done.



Everything on me was the whitest white I could find and the effect was terrific. I bought the fabric for the dress at JoAnn's. It was a white synthetic fabric with glitter in it. The basic shape I made for the dress was the same as my Halloween dress. I used a lot of the same pattern to cut it out. However I wanted it to be short and flirty this time. Luckily I have a huge stash of tutus and petticoats. Put a few on and voila!! Volume!



Footwear was a little bit of an issue. Comfort is obviously key for a full day of fun but my Playa boots were way too dark. So I bought some last minute felt at Mood. They have great heavy duty felt in a plethora of colors which is $7 a yard. They even do 1/2 yards which NOT a lot of fabric stores will do in NYC. As a matter of fact they usually give me the stink eye when I want just one yard of a fabric. Anyway I made some boot covers with a simple elastic top which worked just fine.
The staff I recycled from last year and put in new snowflake flashy lights that I got at Wal-Mart for $3. They run on 2 AA batteries so less weight too!

As usual I got called Lady Gaga several times throughout the day. I saw a couple of snowflakes and snowmen throughout the day, but the best had to be when I met my match made in heaven at the Santa After party!

He's now my friend on Facebook. :P




This blog post is brought to you by:

Sexy Unicorn

As Horned Ball was swiftly approaching, I was a little concerned I would not have enough time to make my costume look better than if I had rolled around in a craft store and wore whatever stuck. However with a little ingenuity and of course a lot of hot glue, I think I pulled it off. Here is the original sketch:

I went to Claire's Boutique to get rainbow hair extensions and just my luck they had RAINBOW clip in BANGS! lol Why someone would need this I dont know, but I love it. I made my horn out of a paper towel roll which I hot glued to a point then I stuck it to a headband and spray painted the whole thing gold. The tail was just a lot of tule and every random ribbon and fake jewel I had in my "Kostume Kloset". I made "hooves" out of some craft foam, painted gold again. I think the look really came together with the face paint. And as always Rule #2 Fake Eyelashes are a must!! Don't forget Rule #1 "More is More." So I threw on my pink shoes from this Halloween's Sexy Flamingo costume and some pink leg warmers.

TA-DA!

So Erin and I went to Horned Ball and danced the night away with all the local crazy/half nude people of Kostume Kult into the wee hours of the morning when I feel asleep with all my makeup on and woke up with an incredible sparkly pillow.
For more pictures of the party visit my Flickr page. Click Here

-Kostume Girl


THE KNITTY BIDDY