One of the things you have to know about me is that I love love looooove Halloween! I love the challenge of putting together a costume that not only is recognizable but also modest. This year, Jordan chose our costumes; I don’t think he actually thought I would agree to it. This year we were Gamora and Petter “Star Lord” from Guardians of the Galaxy.
Just in case you have no idea who they are here is a trailer of this 2014 Marvel Classic.
Awesome, so not how do we become these amazing characters? We broke down the process into three steps:
Step 1: Plan & purchase
Becoming Peter was really easy for Jordan–he already had half the costume in his wardrobe! We needed a few things to complete the look: the star blaster, a futuristic jacket, and a walkman.
Gamora, on the other hand, required much more thought! Gamora looks a bit scantily clad, but I figured it was nothing a good undershirt couldn’t help. For Gamora’s look I needed some sort of leather looking vest, opera (like) fingerless gloves, a leg piece, green face/body paint, temporary hair dye, and her unique “God slayer” sword.. not too much right?
Things we purchased include:
green face paint (I purchased a dark and light green for all the contour purposes)
leg strap piece for added military effect (warning: this piece looks a little risqué on Amazon)
corset vest for leather details (warning: this piece looks a little risqué on Amazon)
glitter eyeliner for the face details
Step 2: Customize our gear
The hardest thing of buying things online is tying them all together. We didn’t want our star blaster and “God slayer” sword to look like we picked them up at Toys’R’Us (R.I.P. Toys’R’Us).
I had some miscellaneous metallic spray paint thanks to my background in art and I purchased cardboard and sand paper to make my sword. Jordan’s blaster we taped off and sprayed the white & orange bits silver then used a paper towel to smudge some black acrylic paint into the crevices to make it look “used”. Quite differently, my sword took way more effort.
To create the amazingness that was my sword, I, first had to find a really good image and blow it up to the size I wanted (about 3 feet long). Then I used the image as a die cut and cut out the shape of the sword from the cardboard. I also cut out some additional pieces to create the depth. After that, I used some book binding glue to fasten the cardboard together and then I wrapped masking tape all around the sword to help strengthen it. I covered it with glue and let it dry, then attempted to smooth out all the ridges with sandpaper. Then, I spray painted the sword and added all the final touches by hand.
It took forevvverrrrr to make my sword and I learned A LOT. (Please enjoy these two photos of the process.)
Step 3: Dress up!
We had a neighborhood party the night before Halloween and my work always encourages dressing up for Halloween Day. Thus, instead of having to redo my hair twice I did it once and pinned it up overnight. I curled my hair then used color hair spray in black and maroon to ombre my hair like Gamora.
I went green by using a beauty blender I was about to toss to apply this amazing face paint that I found online and I purchased a cheap white eyeliner to help create the face markings (I added the glitter eyeliner to help the markings stand out) and did this smudgy smokey eye to complete the look. Jordan helped my greenery my arms and then he proceeded to get ready in like 10 minutes.
I put my phone in my pocket and played “Hooked on a Feeling” by Blue Suede to help set the mood as we were at our party and my work family event. In my opinion, adding a theme song brings your costume to life! It was a blast!
