THEY LIVE Halloween

it's that time of the year again...my favorite holiday. halloween!  it's perfect, horror & candy.

found this article/tutorial in MAKE magazine online:
 They Live Alien Masks by Kiersten Essenpreis

wowzers!  amazing!  so andrew & i set off to make our own... and a side note, kiersten made a kickass Evil Dead 2 group costume this year. check it out here.  i once was annie from evil dead 2 and a friend was ash, but alas, no one knew who we were.  the best guess was "car accident victims?"...and my costume was SPOT ON...oh well.

ok, so if you haven't seen They Live, what are you waiting for?  
it's a 1988 gem by john carpenter.

amy joined us as roddy piper to help complete the costume. "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum."

mask making steps 1-4.  my clay tools came in handy.

mask masking steps 5-8

the final product.  i wore my mink stole - it finally gets some use! "You see, I take these glasses off, she looks like a regular person, doesn't she.  Put 'em back on...formaldehyde-face!"

andrew the alien: OBEY

"i've got one that can see!"

once again, the article for making the masks is here. 

by the power of greyskull

it's that time of the year again...the obligatory halloween post:

HE-MAN HALLOWEEN!

for a few years now i've wanted to get a group together to be he-man characters. i claimed teela - the head of the royal army and had 2 others join my crew: he-man & the sorceress.

first off...reference photos...
teela. action figure & cartoon. i went for a hybrid of both.
the sorceress & he-man.i was quite proud of myself to have busted out my sewing machine that i don't know how to use. my roommate kelley gave me a tutorial, and holy craft! i sewed! he-man & battlecat over saw the process.
i built teela's snake battle gear out of cardboard & duct tape. i saved a bunch of toilet paper & paper towel rolls to make the cobra staff and edging on the armor.
a couple of crafternoons later and here we are...
miss amelia as the sorceress, me as teela, and miss whitney as he-man himself.
snake battle gear.

halloween 2010: tetris style

before it's too late to still talk about halloween...i feel the need to share our homemade group costume this year. TETRIS!

fabrication began friday night. paul & i bound the boxes together - rain measured & cut the paper.paul spray mounted while i was in charge of the black duct taping.
i dry run of the costumes - franklin helped out too.
the stack of the 6 pieces finished!

in full effect!tom, rain, me, paul, amy, brandl

foldedpigs on tv!

yesterday my foldedpigs skull baking cups were on a morning show, The Everyday Show, in denver. it was in conjunction with my skull plates being featured in the october halloween issue of Country Living Magazine.
you can view it here. they talk about the baking cups around 1min 40 sec.

i attempted to embed the video on here...but i don't think it's working. doh.

D-E-V-O

hey spuds! are we not men?
i have been dreaming about this halloween group costume for some time now (2 years or so) and am psyched to see it through! this week in studio i was a bit distracted because of halloween, my favorite holiday. so honestly, my effort this week was getting the group and materials together to pull this off.

welcome to the world of de-evolution and DEVOCOM.
we ended up mixing and matching devo fashion styles through the ages. so we were "DEVO's greatest hits".

yellow jumpsuits were needed...franklin wanted to attack the yeti in the studio. rain and i did a bunch of dye tests to these coverall painting suits. the numerous dyes did not take. spray paint became the colorant of choice. the group had a bit of a crafternoon or more of a crafterevening. tom and paul sprayed the suits, and amy cut out the DEVO stencils for the suit lettering.
after figuring out the energy dome hat measurements (math is hard!) we compassed and cut out the cardboard circles and used strips of posterboard for the sides. enter the massive amounts of packing tape. rain and i got into a rythmn with the circle construction.
the bottom hat ring was cut to accommodate each individuals head size and the stacked circles were attached with MORE packing tape. red spray paint provided the finishing super shiny touch.
rain modeling an energy dome pre-spray paint. black duct tape/industrial velcro belts and cardboard/pipe cleaner glasses made up the accessories to complete the outfit.
the final product. we are DEVO. D-E-V-O. the group: rain, paul, meredith, amy, tom.
you think we like wearing these? we HAVE to wear them.

overall a HUGE hit. we only were mistaken for "the cars" once. ha!