I was going to the first annual Johnny Vatos Tribute to Halloween concert and wanted to wear a costume, but the Orc costume I was planning to wear on the 31st would have been way too uncomfortable, would have taken way too long to put on, and pieces might have been damaged (especially while removing) prior to the costume's big day. Therefore I put together a secondary costume that would be easy and relatively comfortable to wear to a general admission concert.
Having had multiple comments in the past that one of my photos on my Match.com profile reminded people of Harry Potter, feeling that I do bear some resemblance to Daniel Radcliffe, and being a big fan of the movies and books, I figured Harry Potter would be a good choice.
My first purchase was the glasses, which I got at a local Halloween Express seasonal costume shop. I was a bit concerned that they would be uncomfortable because they were cheapo Rubie's ("toy") glasses, and they had no nose pads, so I ordered a second pair of Harry-Potter-"type" glasses from MaximumEyewear.com that did have nose pads. However, my fears turned out to be unfounded and the Rubie's glasses were not any less comfortable than the sunglasses shop's version. More importantly, the Rubie's glasses looked more like Harry Potter's glasses in the movies, so I went with them. (And looking at this promotional photo from "Goblet of Fire", it appears Harry's actual movie glasses are without nose pads.)
I also bought Rubie's Harry Potter
Deluxe Wand at the store. This thing is a piece of crap. First off,
it's way too thick (and blunt) and the wood simulation is super-"toy" and
awful. The light-up end is a big giant capsule-shaped piece of white plastic
that looks incredibly cheesy in its failure to blend with the rest of the
wand. The sound effects are okay, I guess, if monotonous in their three-step
sequence, but the problem is that they go off way too easily. Having the
sounds and lights tuned to go off at the flick of a child's wrist also means
that slight bumps are continually setting off the wand as well (you'll want
to watch where you set it at night, or you'll be bumping it in the dark and
freaking yourself out 
). And you can't just pop out the battery during times
when you don't want the wand to go off, since the battery compartment is
secured with a recessed screw. What the wand really needs is a button to
activate the lights and sounds, rather than the over-sensitive motion sensor.
I bought the sound-and-lights wand at the store because I didn't know that there was a better version available, but indeed there turned out to be. A company called The Noble Collection has a line of Harry Potter prop replicas and knickknacks that includes a beautiful version of Harry's wand. Seems to be very close to the actual movie prop, and it even comes in lush replica "Ollivander's wand shop" packaging that's straight out of Sorcerer's Stone. (Noble has a light-up version of the wand as well, but as far as is possible to tell without a photo of the wand in "off" mode, it appears that they didn't go to much more trouble than Rubie's in making the light-up tip blend with the rest of the wand.)
The tie I went with is also not the Rubie's version, but one produced by a hat company called Elope. I got this version rather than Rubie's because it was characterized on BuyCostumes.com as the deluxe version. Indeed, it's 100% silk (the Rubie's one is no doubt polyester) and if the color reproduction on the photo of the Rubie's one on their site is accurate, the Elope tie's colors are more true to the films. However, I now notice looking at this Prisoner of Azkaban still (a relatively rare one where they aren't wearing their grey sweaters over their ties — I decided to forgo that element of the costume due to heat and comfort considerations, but http://students.kennesaw.edu/~tsd1347/harrypotter.html (no longer available except on archive.org) has some links to different vendors selling replicas of the sweater, as well as additional versions of the other costume parts) that the Gryffindor crest at the bottom front of the tie is apparently an invention of Elope. In that, then, the Rubie's tie is more authentic.
The robe is the standard Rubie's adult Harry Potter Robe (I didn't see any variants of this item available). BuyCostumes.com ran out of stock fairly early in the season, and a few other major online costume sellers I checked were also out of stock, but I found a site that did still have it, AnniesCostumes.com. I hadn't noticed in the films prior to getting this costume that the Hogwarts robes have a big hood on the back.
For Harry Potter's trademark scar, I had bought a couple of different scar prosthetics, from Aradani Studios and Rubie's. The Aradani scar was way too thick. It seemed like it would just look like a thick rubber thingy glued to my forehead. It might look pretty good if you flipped it over to its rear, concave side, and built up your forehead all around it with fake skin, but if you were going to do that, you wouldn't need the prosthetic — you could just make a trough in the fake skin. The Rubie's scar was made of much thinner latex, and was a concave trough on a base rather than being a weird raised wormy thing, but the base itself was an exaggerated convex shape not appropriate for matching the curvature of a normal human forehead, and was an outlined section of a much larger piece that was apparently supposed to be cut out, meaning there'd be no thinning at the edges. Looks like Rubie's has updated the packaging since I got my kit (now featuring the movie Harry rather than the book Harry), so it's possible they've improved the prosthetic as well, but I doubt it.
Due to my dissatisfaction with these prosthetics, I elected to just paint the red lightning bolt scar on my forehead with my new alcohol-activated Skin Illustrator paints. I believe I used the Prime Red color from the FX Palette. I of course went a brighter red than the movie so the scar could be seen from a distance and in the dark of the concert venue. The alcohol-activated paint stood up pretty well to the sweat my forehead produced while dancing around at the concert.
Unfortunately, I made a stupid mistake while applying my makeup and forgot to take into account the reversing of the mirror, so my scar was on the wrong side of my forehead (this was the first time I've had to do a makeup job to myself that wasn't bilaterally symmetrical). Or at least it was for these shots, which were actually taken after Halloween since I was too rushed before the concert and too tired afterwards to take them on the day. I have a vague feeling that I might have had the scar on the correct side the day of the show, but I'm probably wrong. My hair really does not like to part in that direction, so keeping my scar visible on the correct side would be a challenge. In any case, I have flipped all these photos left-to-right to put the scar in the right place. Unfortunately this puts the Gryffindor crest on my robe on the wrong side, and has me holding my wand in the wrong hand (although right-handed Harry is shown holding his wand in his left hand on the U.S. covers of Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix, and has been known to have his wand in his left hand in the movies as well), but I figured those would be less glaring than the scar being off.
I probably should have done a couple of additional makeup steps to look more like Daniel Radcliffe: darken my eyebrows and wear blue color contacts, but it didn't occur to me (this was, after all, supposed to be a fast 'n' easy costume, and I was devoting most of my costuming faculties to preparing to be an Orc).
I got a few nice comments about my costume at the show, especially from one
girl who asked to have her photo taken with me, explaining that she's a Harry
Potter fanatic. Unfortunately I didn't give her my email address to send a
copy of the photo to, so she's the only one out there with a photo of me on
the actual day I wore it out (along with a possible correct-side scar, my
hair might have been more Harry Pottery that day, since it was longer). Hey,
if you happen to be reading this, could you send me a copy?
Unless you are fascinated by the sight of me in a Harry Potter costume, there's not too much to see in the additional photos — they're mostly extra takes of the shots you see here — but I'll include them for the sake of completeness.
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Dan Harkless
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