Halloween 2010
Well, my early Halloween is now finished... though I may be able to find a few other events going on, but the part of it I'm doing any work for is over. And it was fun. I've been volunteering to help out with the Niseko Annupuri Halloween party which was held on the 16th (slightly early in a successful attempt to get better weather- it's getting colder fast nowadays).
On Monday the 11th, I went to Tokyu Hands (department store) in Sapporo to help out with their Halloween promotion (and promote the party at the same time). I had about 10-15 minutes to get the costume ready, but I think I managed a decent Zombie. Not as good as last Halloween's makeup job, but not bad considering the time crunch. http://sapporo.tokyu-hands.co.jp/
Friday (the 15th) morning I got up at 5 am and drove in to Sapporo again to help decorate the special train that was going from Sapporo to Niseko- an old steam engine train that they run in the summer/fall, only the day of the party they let us decorate it for Halloween. The same day I also went to immigration and got the visa renewed on my passport, and looked into repairing my mysteriously dead computer (which remains dead for now, though I ended up buying another one. My old one was 3 years old, so not ancient, but showing its age. I still want to get some files off it.). On the way home, I found a barber shop and went in and had them shave my head in preparation for my costume.
Saturday was the day of the party. But as part of the train promotion, they wanted a few people to ride it in costume, which meant leaving Niseko at about 6 am. This in turn meant putting on my costume before leaving Niseko. I got up at 3 am, put on the horns for the Darth Maul costume, took the dogs out briefly, ate breakfast, then went back to work on the makeup. I managed to do most of it myself, but needed a little help with the back of the head. I'll link to my flickr photos later... I think I did fairly well with the makeup, though there were some things I'd do differently if I do it again- I should have placed the horns slightly higher on the head, and made the black ovals around the horns a little smaller, which would have let me make some of the proportions of the other lines a little more movie accurate, but the costume got great reactions as it was.
We arrived in Sapporo, and stood around in the station a little (me in full Darth Maul costume), then got on the train and started the journey back. On the ride, we handed out flyers, "trick or treat" candy to the kids, and entertained the passengers. There were two kids who found me a bit too scary, but so many more kids absolutely loved it. Every time we went through the tunnels, I turned on my lightsaber (just single blade while on the train due to space considerations). Had LOTS of pictures taken of me. So I've now worked on the UMD Theater's haunted ship, a haunted train, a haunted barn for halloween parties back when I was still in Jr High/High School... One of these days, I'll have to do an actual house for the "haunted house". Though I did help set up the haunted house for the party, I didn't work in it.
We arrived back in Niseko at about 12:30, and went straight to the party location for a quick bite to eat and to do up the last day prep. I was in charge of the games area, so I had a little downtime while waiting for people to come up there- after registration, the families went out to the area pensions and inns and did some trick or treating, then the braver ones went through the haunted house before coming back to the main building and trying out the games. A member of the Imperial 501st, an organization of Star Wars fans who dress up in Imperial costumes (mostly stormtrooper armor) and do a lot of charity work and events, had also come to the party. He walked around in full stormtrooper gear doing crowd control, directing traffic, etc, so while I was waiting for them to make their way to the games area, I occasionally made an appearance downstairs at the registration area. Once again, I was a little bit too scary looking for a few of the kids, but the number of kids that loved it far outweighed them. I kept my distance from the scared ones, and everyone seemed to have a good time.
Later on we closed the games area and sent everyone into the dining hall, where they had dinner, announced the costume contest winners, raffle prizes, etc. I finally got home about 9pm. The makeup had lasted the whole time with the only touching up being a little bit of the black on my neck. All but one of the horns had stayed on for the whole time- the only one that had fallen off was the one I kept bumping (one also had need to be re-spirit gummed on the ride to Sapporo in the morning), which I found pretty impressive. After I got home, I once again took the dogs out for some much needed exercise, then started taking the makeup off, which turned into a bit of a process. Most of it came off no problem, but the theatre wax I'd used to block out my eyebrows took some work, until I discovered the trick of soaking a washcloth in extremely hot water and using that to rub it off. The black around the eyes and on the neck took a bit of work- I still had shadows there the next day, but otherwise most of it came off fairly easily. The shaved head felt a bit sand-papery for a couple of days, and is slightly velvety now, but it's growing. I may be shaving it again if I use the costume for some other events this year. In the meantime, that's what my hats are for. I'm really noticing the drafts.
The link to the flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/green-saber/sets/72157625055163871/ I wish I had more photos of the costume, including some better close ups of the face. But I was involved enough in the running of the events that I didn't have much of a chance to run up to people and ask them to take pictures of me with my camera. If anyone sends me any good ones, I'll pass them on.