Witches and Campers and Ghosts, Oh My!

I'm going to breeze past these last four, because to be honest, I'm tired of writing about it 😅

The Witch

For this costume, I continued my theme of making a custom mask. I chose to center this character's theme around ravens/crows. Crows are very common in the PNW, and would make the perfect witchy familiar. I had also seen this photo on pinterest, and was immediately inspired to do my own.

All I needed was a basket, fallen branches from my yard, hot glue, wire, tinfoil, fake moss, an old baseball cap, and foam clay. I had found a perfect fake Raven on Buy Nothing, but unfortunately it was too heavy to have sitting on someone's head for an extended period of time. Thus, I had to make my own.

If you have been following along with my other projects, you may have noticed a familiar motif in this costume: birch tree eyes. Awhile back, I embroidered a shirt with this same design. I had spent a literal year working on those embroidered eyes, and I wanted to get a bit more mileage out of them if I could. Instead of having the witch wear my shirt, I decided to literally stamp them all over her arms. 

When I posted my birch tree shirt, it actually got a bit of attention on Tumblr. I got the idea to digitize my eye shapes and make a repeating pattern that could then be printed on fabric. I did that, but as I was about to upload it to the printing website, I chickened out. I didn't like the idea of a large company potentially owning something I had made and profiting off of it. So instead, I decided to use these digitized images to make custom stamps using the stamp-o-matic tool on thingyverse. It was so easy!! I just uploaded my image to the tool they listed in the description, copied the output, clicked customize on the thingyverse page, and then pasted those values into the input. After slicing, adjusting the size, and printing, this is the result!

After watching this video by TheCrafsman SteadyCraftin (sooo good, the little puppet teaches you to craft) I thought I would have to create a silicone mold and make a rubber stamp, but because skin is so elastic, I think it actually works better when the stamp is made of hard plastic.

After repeating the process fourteen more times, I had enough eye shapes to cover her arms and leg in a unique, spooky pattern. In my head, this symbolized the witch literally becoming one with the forest—turning into a birch tree whose knotted eyes would continue to watch travelers become just as lost in these woods.

The Ghost

This was the design I struggled with the most. I couldn't rely heavily on stage makeup, because that would take too much time for the actor to put on and remove every night, so I somehow had to communicate their ghostliness purely with clothing. Their character was also recently dead, so I couldn't rely on the classic victorian white dress trope. I had hoped to make them look like they had been drenched in the PNW rain and died from exposure, but that was shot down by the directors. They didn't want the actor to have uncomfortably wet hair every night, which I totally understood.

But that just left the vague idea of having a Laura-Dern-in-Jurassic-Park-but-make-it-white hiking outfit? In addition to the mask, I added a glowing, beating heart. Unfortunately? Fortunately? I didn't actually get any useable production photos of the ghost in the cabin they occupied. Guests had to walk into a completely dark room while she dragged herself across the floor and moaned. Luckily, the actors completely made up for the lackluster costume with their performance.

But I did get pictures of the glowing, beating heart! Heart was 3D printed using the Anatomical Heart by cicerone on thingiverse and some transparent filament. My partner helped by creating a raspberry pi with a simple program that made the little red LEDs blink in a heart-beat rhythm.

The Camper

This costume was pretty simple—the hero piece was this fisherman's vest which I found at an antique mall. I thought it was perfect because it had PNW specific patches on it (I mean, come on—Northwest Steelhead & Salmon Council? How could I pass this up?) Plus it looked just ratty enough to be spooky ;) Free weathering! This didn't end up coming into the story at all, but in my head, the camper became obsessed with the siren in the lake, and was hell-bent on capturing her, which is how he ended up "lost" in the woods. Their whole schtick was to tell ghost stories around the campfire for audience members to sit in and listen to.

The vest was quite a bit bigger than both the actors who would be wearing it, so I took it in at the sides enough to fit them both.

The mask then completed the look:

The Ranger

This costume was also quite simple: green pants, tan button up, black belt, green hat with an official looking badge (it said Police, but it was hardly noticeable). The only custom thing I made was this fun patch:

It is the actual Washington state park logo, but I added the creature from the show poster. The directors liked it so much, they printed it out to add to signage, trashcans, etc. Velcro was added on the back of the patch so that the two actors who performed on altering nights could easily remove and transfer it to either shirt.