So this Memorailia's cosplay (as I think I've mentioned) combines my love of zombies with my love of Douglas Adams, in the form of a zombified Arthur Dent from Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy. I know, Arthur never gets zombified or anything even remotely similar, but it's an idea which I know will bring me a lot of joy on the day. Granted I've been very slow getting started with this, but I'm finally making some progress. I picked up a towel from Wilkinsons on Sunday afternoon, ordered a dressing gown from Tesco Direct on Sunday evening, and when it was ready to collect from the store today I also picked up some pyjamas.
So this evening I've started zombifying them. I've got five consistencies of fake blood and some black facepaint, so I've just been going to town. For now I've just been working on the pyjama top and one side of the towel, tomorrow I'll do the other side of the towel and the pyjama bottoms, and then it just leaves the dressing gown.
The pyjama top was a bit more tedious, as I had to make a good, thick blood smear around the neck and tapering away as it headed down the chest; dribbled blood from where zombie Dent had been feeding. I started off by thickly smearing some cake blood in, and then sloshing on increasingly thinner blood until I'd got a nice effect going.
The towel I had a lot more fun with :)
The first thing I did (as I didn't want this towel to look brand new) was to brush black Snazaroo facepaint over both sides of it. Snazaroo is supposed to be applied with a moist sponge, but to give it more of a brushed on look I just wiped the towel directly but lightly over the open pot of facepaint. It was a bit time-consuming, but I was happy with the outcome, after all I'm sure that Arthur must have got himself a little bit grubby before he caught his first victim.
I didn't use the cake blood on the towel either, as I wanted to get more of a cast-off look, so I went straight down to the liquids. First of all I poured a little bit of runny blood (very much with the consistency of water) onto my hands and flicked it up and down the length of the towel to give a bit of background gore. Then I squeezed a trail of gel blood across the towel, before folding it in half and rubbing it in. Once that was done I repeated the process with the stage blood (very gooey consistency), and the result can be seen above.
I did one more thing after this photo was taken which I was incredibly pleased with. I took a mouthful of the stage blood (which was tricky, given its thickness!), rinsed it around in my mouth for a few seconds, and then coughed/spit it out in places across the towel. This gave a pretty incredible spatter effect, which I'll be using more of when I do the other side tomorrow.
I'm still undecided about whether to get slippers or not for this costume. Obviously it adds to the authenticity, but with me dragging my feet around the hall all day it could end up proving painful.
The pyjama bottoms I'll be doing in a similar fashion to the top, but in addition I'll be tearing it a bit around the ankles.
The dressing gown I'll be going to town on a bit. It seems to be a zombie cliche that us walking corpses end up getting singed, so I'll be taking a blowtorch to my gown (out on the safety of the patio!) to give it a bit of charring. Then it'll be getting a combination of the pj/towel treatments; cake blood, stage blood, cough/spit spatter, the works. I will feel a bit of regret at this though, as it's turned out to actually be a really comfortable dressing gown! I may invest in a second one for just lounging around the house.
Then of course the final element is the Guide. I have one I made for my non-zombie Dent, which I'll be using for this. I was toying with the idea of making a new Guide which simply said "Panic" on the front (in large, friendly letters), but I don't think I'll have the money to do one this side of Memorabilia.
Oh and I've also invested in zombie contact lenses for the first time since I started my zombie career! I've bought a pair of white ones, so I can put a prescription lens in one eye and a white lens in the other. It'll seem weird, but I should get used to it. Stay tuned for photos in three weeks!
