Just when you think you’ve seen it all. Chocolate costumes!!

The Chocolate Show in New York City debuted with a chocolate superhero fashion show. These costumes were created by chocolatiers and pastry chefs, and I must say they look very tasty!

Shown above are photos of a chocolate Batgirl and Laura Croft in this “edible catwalk extravaganza.”

Via Telegraph.co.uk:

Bat Girl sported a fitted chocolate bodice as well as large chocolate wings with the classic comic-book words ‘Kapow’ and ‘Bang’ painted onto them.

The Lara Croft outfit comprised a chocolate bikini top and chocolate hotpants complete with a chocolate holster and guns.

Of course, no superhero fashion show would be complete without Wonder Woman and Iron Man. There was also a bodybuilder outfit complete with giant chocolate dumbells, as well as a fantastic Warrior Woman made of French chocolate that reportedly took 120 hours to make.

Wow, that’s pretty crazy. Let’s hope they kept the room temperature nice and cool.

Simply amazing! Wouldn’t this make a great “Got Milk?” commercial?

[Via Telegraph.co.uk and Trendhunter.com]

The WWE RAW recently broadcast a Diva Costume Contest to celebrate Halloween.

In the true spirit of Halloween, the women wrestlers dressed in costume and then proceeded to beat each other up. Here are a few photos of their costumes and also a video clip from the broadcast.

There’s no sense having a Halloween party if you’re not planning on creeping people out with horror films, monster mashes and eerie appetizers.

You can have your very own Fear Factor Food Fest with these yucky and yummy snacks:

Edible Arachnids

 

Eerie Eyeballs

 

Bleeding Heart

 

Decaying corpse flesh with entrails

Head on over to britta.com for the recipies to enjoy eerie eats this Halloween.

Get ready to play dead.

Ok, World Zombie day (coming up on October 26th) isn’t just about playing dead…it’s about feeding the hungry. Uh, perhaps I should clarify that. World Zombie Day is about having a deadly fun time, as pretend zombies, for a good cause.

Pennyslvania is proud of its Zombie heritage (think iconic films Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, both filmed in Pennsylvania). In fact, Pittsburg has become the hub and official World Zombie Day organizer and every year they host the Zombie Fest.

This year on Friday, October 24th, there will be a Zombie Masquerade Ball. On Saturday, October 25th there’s a sort of “Zombie Com” with horror writers, vendors and activities. And Sunday, of course, is the world famous Zombie Walk in which participants bring cans of non-perishable food items for the Greater Pittsburg Food Bank.

Here’s a promotional trailer just for fun:

There are 30 acres of land in Harveysburg, Ohio which are unlike any other plot of land in the whole state. They are not especially fertile, nor do they host any sort of exotic flora or fauna — unless costumed enthusiasts can be included in the latter. It IS home, however, to a permanent 16th century English village which is in turn the home of the Ohio Renaissance Festival!

An ever-changing spectacle of sight and sound, the Ren Fest (as it is familiarly called) runs from Aug. 30th to Oct. 19th, 2008 and will re-open again around the same time in 2009. A $20 ticket will gain you entrance to the winding lanes of this piece of transplanted history and all the delights contained therein.

The shops sell just about anything the historically minded tourist could desire, from mass-produced costumes to intricately hand-crafted clothing pieces, custom leatherwork, handmade masks, weapons, handmade musical instruments and more.

There is also a great deal of entertainment to be had, no matter your age and preference for muddiness. The Swordsmen put on a dashing show, instructing the male half of the population in the ways of masculine Renaissance charm after attempting to cut each other to pieces with (hopefully blunted) rapiers, much to the delight of the audience.

Musicians of consummate skill were to be found at every corner, peddling their wares to any who would listen in a cascade of poignant notes from harp, lute, dulcimer and guitar. And last—and I fear I must categorize it as the least—were the gentlemen who felt that mud was the ideal medium for the re-telling of such great literary works as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Beowulf.

I’m sure I would have enjoyed their recounting of the Viking’s voyage to America more if they had not managed to spatter my 13th century dress with mud from thirty feet away.

Amidst this delightful and somewhat bewildering cacophony are the employees and tourists who have turned gaily out in their best fancy-dress for the occasion. We saw fantasy costumes, elaborate Renaissance period pieces that were hundreds of hours in the making, medieval ladies and knights, archers, monks, and various sprites and spirits.

Whether you spend the day costume hunting with a camera, sipping a drink, eating hearty stew out of a bread bowl whilst listening to the best sorts of music, riding a camel (yes, there ARE camels there. Why? No one is quite sure) or browsing the endless selection of fine wares, there is something for everyone at the Ohio Renaissance Festival!

Brought to you by ManWithPez, guest costume blogger extraordinaire.

After Thursday’s excursions into the realms of drunken surreality, we all realized that we had to pace ourselves. Friday held the first of the celebrity panels we were going to, the first real day of costume wear, and the Buffy and Dr. Horrible sing-a-longs.

Before the day could start, however, ThatCostumeGirl, queen of the procrastinators had to finish my Dr. Horrible costume, which required some hemming. I was running around like a kid on Christmas morning: “C’mon! Get up! We gotta go!” And she, gamely, rose to the occasion. She got up and finished the costume before putting on her Dr. Horrible groupie costume. Our pal Lissa was dressed this way as well, and I was the only Dr. Horrible with his own fanclub!

The elation about this faded fast when I ran into the first other Dr. Horrible of the day, and his costume was ten times better than mine.

Didn’t bother me much when I found out later that night that he was actually in the Whedontrack’s Sing-a-long as Dr. Horrible. So, I don’t feel so bad about mine, and besides, I hadn’t had anything to drink yet.

The lines in Dragon Con are legendary, and to get into a 2 o’clock show, we began waiting in line around 10am. We found our friends, holding our places like the good friends they are, at least, they were holding the place, until the entire line had to be moved elsewhere. Dragon Con has yet to understand the sheer size of the crowd the Firefly celebrities draw, but it is substantial.

The very first things I noticed in this line were two costumes. One, a young lady (I have to say that I use this term loosely…but I did appreciate the costume) in a Gizmonics Institute jumpsuit that was open damn near down to her knees. Not only did I appreciate it, everyone who passed her enjoyed it, as she was wearing very little underneath. Now, this kind of thing happens rampantly at this con, but it was a shock to see it first thing Friday morning.

The second was the young woman in the beautiful Cylon Six red dress. She was having a hard time staying in her dress, as it doesn’t lend itself very well to standing, or sitting in line. I noticed that if she didn’t keep the dress in check, it was going to get the better of her, and all the males in the line were with me in hoping that gravity or her dress would come out on the winning side.

After the line moved, ThatCostumeGirl took the opportunity to look around and take pictures of the more interesting costumes. She came back to find me getting my picture taken with the Six. What can I say, I’ve always been interested in robotics.

When it was my turn to look around, I ran into what was possibly the coolest group of costumes I’ve ever seen. Jack Burton and Gracie Law from Big Trouble in Little China, but, scattered around them, there were dozens of people dressed in the red and yellow costumes of the Chang Sings and Wing Kong, the rival gangs that duke it out in the Chinese Standoff at the beginning of the movie.

I was impressed to say the least, but, man, those guys were near impossible to herd together, which is probably why you won’t see a picture of them here.

Also of note, there was a little guy dressed in one of the coolest Speed Racer costumes I’ve seen! He also asked to get his picture taken with me, and who is Dr. Horrible to say no to a photo op?

I can remark on there being a lot more Dr. Who costumes this year, and, one of my favorite things in the con happened while I waited near the beginning of the line. The guy who promised me an “Evil League of Evil” ribbon for my badge came through, knowing he was going to be at the back of a miles long line, and he STILL gave me the ribbon. That’s class, man…that’s class.

Less classy was the line for the Dr. Horrible Sing-a-long. The panel went off without a hitch, and was very entertaining, but what do you expect from Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk? After that we went our separate ways, and I, knowing I was going to be singing later, went up to the room to start getting my courage on…rather, to begin drinking. After an elevator ride with a woman wearing my favorite comic costume from the con, a flawless Lilandra costume from X-Men, the drink was on!

The good thing about staying in the same hotel as the sing-a-long was that I could head back up and replenish whenever I needed to. The bad thing about the hotel is that this was where it appeared most of the Clemson v. Alabama fans had decided to stay. These poor people were wandering and mixing among people dressed…well, like me, while they were wearing their football jerseys. As I have stated previously, the surreality knows no bounds.

When we got into the show, it became readily apparent that we weren’t the only ones that had imbibed in social lubricant in order to get ready to sing this evening. Frankly, I don’t see the point in getting so drunk that you can’t stand, let alone sing at a sing-a-long. Cast members were scattered in the first few rows, and we would find out why during the show. The show was wonderful, with the exception of the man behind me stating very loudly and exuberantly that he wanted the Dr. Horrible on stage to …well, make love to him, after a fashion, I guess you could say.

It was after this show that I ran into the scariest Captain Hammer of the show. We were allowed to keep out seats for the next show, the Once More With Feeling sing-a-long, and happily did so. As we got up to go to the bathroom, however, I was grabbed around the neck by a flamboyantly gay Captain Hammer, who proceeded, after choking me, to hump my leg vigorously.

While ThatCostumeGirl and Lissa snapped pictures, I was being violated by this young man who was obviously very into his character, and very drunk. It’s hard to yell for help when you’re being choked and drunk yourself, but I’m not certain a cry of “I NEED AN ADULT!!!” would have gotten the attention that I needed.

The Buffy show was even better than it had been previous years, with Buffy alum Ken Feinberg (the Chaos Demon from Fool for Love) playing the part of the Mustard Man. Also, instead of Spike throwing a wine bottle into the crowd, causing pain and mass hysteria (and possibly alcohol poisoning), she threw, instead, a huge plush bunny. It nailed me right in the face, and I couldn’t have been happier about it!

After the show, we decided to A) drink more, and B) roam around looking for more cool costumes! Frankly, the rest of the evening is a quick blur to me, but if you look at ThatCostumeGirl’s pictures, under her favorites from the convention, you’ll see her favorite pose was a Batman/Superman picture. I took that picture, with the huge telephoto lens on my camera, from 40 feet away, as I was trying to keep from falling on the pavement. I failed, but the picture rocked!

Saturday would see a huge costume failure on my part, a weather failing, an unasked question, and a shindig! See you soon!

[Photos by Lissa, MalsWay, ManWithPez, and ThatCostumeGirl]

One of our readers named Samantha dropped us a line about her Dragon*Con 2008 photos. CLICK HERE to view her photo gallery.

Samantha is a full-time artist. She sells her work on Ebay, Amazon and Etsy. Her custom services include Fleur de Lis, children’s bedroom murals and portraits, and much more. Check out Her Website for more information.

We love hearing from our readers and we always try our best to acknowledge reader-submitted artwork. Thanks, Samantha!

So, yer not sure how to talk like a pirate and even if ye did…yer not sure how to celebrate it? Here’s a few fun suggestions in case ye can’t locate yerself a decent pirate celebration:

1. Watch Jack Sparrow discuss Talk Like a Pirate Day in this YouTube video:

2. Go to the Pirates of the Burning Sea web site and play a pirate video game for free!

3. Download a pirate wallpaper to your desktop (see the one above).

4. Translate mundane speech into pirate talk with this free pirate translator.

5. Make hot dog pirate ships.

6.Watch The Pirate Movie, Blackbeard’s Ghost, Captain Blood or Pirates of the Caribbean.

If all else fails and yer a hopeless landlubber, take a nap…even pirates be needin’ their sleep!

Arrrr!

I think it’s only fitting that the guys who started the greatest pirate celebration on earth get a little much deserved attention, don’t you think?

Let’s go back to the beginning. On June 6, 1995, John Baur (Ol’ Chumbucket) and Mark Summers (Cap’n Slappy) were playing racquetball. They started yelling out encouragements to each other in pirate slang. At that point they decided that the pirate slang made the game more fun and the time pass quickly. But more importantly…they decided that the world needed a new national holiday such as Talk Like a Pirate Day. They would have chosen June 6th as the official day for their newly instituted holiday but it was already taken so they decided on September 19th instead.

The two pirate guys celebrated Talk Like a Pirate Day on their own for seven years. They had created their own national holiday that no one knew about and they were fairly content with that. Then one day, in early 2002, John came across the email of famous humorist, Dave Barry. They sent an email to introduce themselves and their pirate holiday. Dave Barry published an article about it…

And the rest is history! History that you can read on their official website, which is extremely entertaining, by the way. You can also buy the Pirate Guys’ books and other merchandise on their site and view great pirate pictures.

As a note of interest, Ol’ Chumbucket recently turned into a real pirate of the Caribbean—he moved his large family down to the island of St. Croix!

This Friday, September 19th, raise yer cup of grog and toast the Pirate Guys what gave us the world wide fun-omenon of Talk like a Pirate day!

ARRRR!

A word of note before this article begins: I am a compatriot of ThatCostumeGirl, and if you go to her website, you will see me referred to there as ManWithPez. Some of the pictures you see here were taken by me, some were taken by her. Of the five costumes I took with me this year, she made all of them. This article is written in conjunction with her experiences, and predominantly relates to costumes, but offers a look in the round regarding the convention.

THURSDAY:

There aren’t many costumes to be found at Dragon*Con on Thursday night. Thursday night doesn’t really cover any official function of Dragon*Con other than registration and badge retrieval. This year, the registration line started early, but, in their wisdom, Dragon*Con opened the doors early as well. Earlier registration can mean only one thing: A chance to drink more beer. Alcohol can be very important to most of the costumers at Dragon*Con. Besides offering a shot of courage, it helps to suppress dignity, and plenty of dignity was suppressed here.

On a more serious note, I was wearing my Dr. Horrible groupie costume (consisting of a t-shirt bearing Neil Patrick Harris’s face and the much coveted Dr. Horrible goggles). My first costume sighting this year was Shaggy and Daphne from Scooby Doo. It beat the brakes off my first year at D*C, where my first sighting was a gang of Klingons on line at the Chik-Fil-A. Surrealism knows no bounds in Atlanta during Labor Day weekend. Back to business, Shaggy even had a box of Scooby Snax. It made me smile and point, much like most people in the line.

And then the lady Captain Hammer showed up.

Nothing against this young lady, but it was an encounter that would set the tone for all other meetings I would have with the Captain. More on that later.

This young woman put an “I Got Hammered by Captain Hammer” sticker right over NPH’s face! If I had known that I’d be in this line again later, I probably wouldn’t have been so tolerant of it. But, hey…a Thursday costume at D*C is a rarity, and I was just happy to see it.

After badge retrieval we ran into another Horrible fan (or Interns, or whatever the hell we’re calling ourselves this week) who claimed that if we found him on Friday, he would give us some Evil League of Evil ribbons for our badges. Also, one of our fellow linegoers shouted out “You just made my day!” at me at the top of his lungs (for some, apparently the registration line does not prevent alcohol consumption) when he saw my t-shirt and goggles. I also did get to hear a costumer’s favorite question: “How did you do that?” This time meaning the hard to obtain goggles and the paint job applied to them by ThatCostumeGirl. Often times, I find myself repeating the phrase “My girlfriend made it,” over and over again at this convention.

As for the second time I ended up in the same line, a friend of ours got into town a little later than everyone else, and the phrase “Leave no man behind” applies in the case of Dragon*Con. After dinner (mine consisted of libation, and little else) we took her through the line again. She and I sang from the Dr. Horrible songbook, or rather, another friend’s cell phone which held the entire score, to the applause of some and the ire of others. By that time, I was too far gone to care. To put it another way, I was very confident in my groupie costume at that point.

I did see a few more decent costumes that night. There was a young man dressed as a golden dragon, complete with wings. There were two Dr. Horribles, one of whom tried to steal my goggles. But, since ManWithPez don’t play dat, he went away disappointed. There was a first sighting of a huge Wookiee costume that we would see several times, mostly because it towers over everything else in the room. Speaking of Wookiees, my first celebrity sighting this year was Peter Mayhew, somehow negotiating an escalator with his two canes.

Con foot traffic can be tough on a 7 foot 2 inch former Chewbacca. There was an early Richard Hatch (from Battlestar Galactica…both incarnations) sighting. He was talking with fans and apparently enjoying himself as he always seems to be doing at these conventions. The Recliner of Rage guy Pierre Bernard was there, and ThatCostumeGirl, to her credit, recognized him immediately. Hey, I might be a media gadfly, but I had to apologize as I had no idea who he was. I guess I don’t watch enough Conan O’Brien. As I write this, I am saddened at the very prospect of not watching enough Conan. TCG was excited enough for the both of us, though.

The night ended with meeting old friends, making new ones and much carousing between the two in the best Dragon*Con traditions. It also ended with regurgitation, reminding me to pace myself for the rest of the convention. Too much confidence can be a bad thing. Friday, the first real day of the con loomed large ahead.

FunkyLady and Husband

Arrr! Last week I posted two videos on how to talk like a pirate. Now that you’re starting to sound like you belong on the Black Pearl, it’s time to get your pirate costume together for next week’s world wide pirate celebration on Friday, the 19th.

If you’re fanatics like my husband and me, you won’t stop at costumes. Two years ago, we created a whole pirate scene in our front yard, most of which we made ourselves.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First you need to look like a pirate. Try to use items from your own closet (Like mine in this picture)…a vest, white shirt, knee-hi boots and a longish coat (costume friendly for men, women and children who want to be pirates). For a headband, simply buy about two yards of cheapo fabric and cut it into two equal, length-wise pieces. Use one for your headband (or just buy the headband w/attached hair from a costume company, they’re as cheap as $5.68) and one strip for the waist sash. To add an extra bit of flair, make 1 x 2 inch” cuts across each end of your sash and tie them off to make tassels. To give your teeth an extra grimy look, color them with brown eye liner (I offered our guests a kiss but alas, there were no volunteers).

Keep in mind that old, over-sized dress shirts can be very versatile. You can cut off the sleeves and collar of a dark colored shirt to make a vest, for example. Or, cut off the collar and make a casing to thread elastic through for a woman’s pirate shirt as seen on this threadbanger.com video (it also teaches you how to make a tricorn hat and pirate corset from old leather pants).

Okay, here’s the really fun part…creating a backdrop for your pirate. You can build a ship’s mast, like the one here, out of 3-4” black PVC pipe. Sew four packages of creepy cloth together for the tattered sail and attach it to the mast with hemp string. Create a crow’s nest from an apple basket and attach a pirate flag to the top of the mast.

We had a few bags of skeleton bones hanging around (No, we did not get them out of our closet) so we spread them around the mast in a wide arch on the ground. Next, we borrowed a neighbor’s old wooden chest and fitted it with a plastic see-through shelf on top of which we threw fake gold coins and gems. A spotlight was under the clear shelf to make the fake loot really shine.

The sidewalk was lined with iron garden hooks, thick rope tied between each. From the end of the hooks we hung pirate skeleton heads and faux cauldrons. The cannons were made with a plywood base and painted with a wood-graining tool. Black PVC pipe was laid in the base to create the guns. We made our guns functional by placing a flashing orange bulb and remote control fogging device inside the PVC pipe. Ka-boom! For added effect, we cranked up the soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s chest and piped the sound outside.

Raid your house for possible fabric and equipment that might be used (in our case, a ship’s wheel from my nautical room, fish netting from a previous party, clothes from my closet, rope, wood-graining tool and extension cords from the garage, cardboard for making sign’s, etc.) to create your costumes and props, before making your final shopping list…you might already have some useful pirate booty hanging around!

This pirate scene took a little time and work, but we had a blast and we suspect other’s did too because people came from all over the city to take pictures. I must warn you, though…if you go all out, your neighbors will expect you to do it every year. If you don’t, you’ll hear about it every year after that.

Halloween is less than two months away! I hope you’ve all started to prepare. Just in case you can’t think of anything, here’s a short list of what I think will be popular costumes this year.

The Joker

Admittedly, there will still be a number of Batmans running around, especially among the younger folk, but it’s clear to see that the Joker was the real attraction of the film Dark Knight, and I’ve already seen Joker costumes popping up all over the place, for events like the movie premiere and conventions. Undoubtedly a fair amount of these will be used for Halloween too. Some of them are amazingly accurate, all the way down to the green hair and smudged, worn makeup.

For the Joker, you will need a long purple coat, a light purple suit jacket, a green vest, a reptile print shirt, purple pinstripe pants, a green camouflage print tie, black shoes, and multi-colored socks (try finding Mardi Gras socks for that). Good luck! For makeup you’ll need some kind of temporary green hair dye (it’s probably more like hair paint), white cream makeup base, red makeup for the mouth, black makeup for the eyes, and brown makeup for creating the shadows and basically helping to smudge and dirty up the makeup job.

There are plenty of tutorials for making Joker costumes online. If you can’t sew, that’s not a problem! You can buy clothing at thrift stores that are similar to the style you need, but light in color, and then simply dye them purple or green. This article on Associated Content gives pretty good instructions for it.

Dr. Horrible

It’s not just us here at My Disguises who are obsessed with the bad doctor. Even though it’s been difficult for costumers to get the costume items they need to make an accurate Dr. Horrible costume, we know that they will do whatever it takes to get out there on Halloween night with all that mad scientist style.

We’ve posted previously about what’s needed in a Dr. Horrible costume, and there is plenty of fan discussion over at drhorrible.net.

But what if you want to show your love for this phenomenon, without looking like everyone else? If you’re a girl you can put together a Penny outfit. Why not go as Billy, Captain Hammer, or even better, choose another villain from the Evil League of Evil? My personal favorite is Dead Bowie, but you can choose for yourself. This post on cruftbox.com has a rundown of all the ELE characters, including screenshots of all of them.

Pirates

Even though there hasn’t been a big pirating film out this year, I think it’s safe to assume that everyone still loves pirates, and they will be strong contenders at Halloween for a few more years yet.

The great thing about pirate costumes is that you don’t have to base your costume on a specific character (unless, of course, you want to). They can be as fancy or as simple as you like, and you can make a costume for males and females.

The most simple, pared down basics for a pirate costume is a puffy shirt, and baggy pants, or a skirt for the girls, if desired, and a sash to tie around your waist or head. From there, you can go on to add hats or bandanas, fancy pirate coats, vests, corsets for the girls, big boots, fat leather belts, jabots, weapons, lots of jewelry, and any other piratey accessory! Make sure to decorate things with skulls and crossbones—I found some awesome silver skull and crossbones buttons at a fabric store the other day.

If you’re thinking about historically accurate pirate costumes, I’ve found that the Pirates of the Caribbean films are actually pretty good references, and corroborate a lot of the research I’ve done on the period (mid-to-late 1700s); with the exception of most of Elizabeth’s costumes, and some of the more obviously fantasy-based costumes. Of course, you can do your own research by searching online or checking out fashion history books.

And while I’m on the topic, let’s give another reminder that Talk Like a Pirate Day is just a few days away! We’ll hear more from FunkyLady on that soon.