Halloween ’10, Day 7: Black And White Cute Bat Costume

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.
After drawing six iterations of a half-hearted gown, I took elements of the bodice that I liked and drew a cute bat costume around them.

That might tell you all a little more about the way my mind works than I am entirely comfortable divulging, but there you have it.

Next week, we shall have masquerade gowns for a mythical ball. I haven’t come up with a story to catch them in, but even if I don’t, they should be so much fun that they won’t need one…

There’s still time to vote on the Good Queen’s next appearance, but you’ll have to scroll down for it, because now it’s time for my favorite part of the Halloween costume parade: what was your favorite this week? (And last week, actually — I can’t leave out my priestess robes.)


1965 Leopard Print Bikini from How To Stuff A Wild Bikini

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Does it look like I’m phoning it in today? Technically I phoned it in earlier this week and then couldn’t upload the finished drawing, got distracted and whoops it’s Thursday already? Sorry about that.

Anyways, How To Stuff A Wild Bikini is one of those 1960s “beach party” movies, and for my money it’s got to be one of the stupidest pieces of entertainment I’ve ever encountered, but since I didn’t pay for it that doesn’t mean much. I watched it on Hulu the other day, for some reason… I think I must have been bored, and the name floated into my mind from when I was on a Buster Keaton kick a while back, because he plays the shaman. Anyways, if you can turn your brain off entirely, it’s reasonably fun and silly, the Bewitched shout-out is hilarious and I liked the costumes (I had no idea until I was reading later that the lead actress was actually pregnant at the time – nice disguising work!) This is the wild bikini of the title – that is to say, it actually spends some time walking around on its own – plus headband. I am not quite sure it would stay on the paperdoll, so good luck with that.

The exact number of colored pencils I ordered was 69, so that makes Melanie Ann’s guess of 72 the closest. Melanie Ann, please post in the comments how you’d like me to color the princess gown and I’ll post it soon!


Halloween Costume Series Day 8: Cleopatra White Linen Egyptian Dress with Blue Lotus Pattern, with Jeweled Collar and Red Sash

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I kind of broke my “no research all month” rule for this one, but it is not hard for me to find an excuse to look at ancient Egyptian clothes. This one is vaguely accurate, although I think the lotus pattern may be over the top, there’s no melting perfume cone and the clothes should be sheer anyways, for full royal style. That’s even further than today’s ‘sexy Cleopatra’ revelers want to go… I used to want to be an Egyptologist, and I’ve even got a book or two on learning hieroglyphs in the other room. Then I discovered Japanese and kanji. No kidding.

If you’ve already taken my poll and answered “obscure costumes,” can you leave a comment and tell me what kinds of costumes you’re talking about? I’m very curious now, since that category’s done so well. I expected that sexy costumes would be low on the list for this crowd, but I wasn’t expecting that no one would choose ‘pop culture’ for a costume. What, no Jedis in this group? No Jokers? I thought everyone wanted to be the Joker this year…