This was primary costume this year — the one I wore to work on the 31st. I would have done something with it on the evening of the 31st as well, but I was physically unable to. More on this later.
My primary inspiration, of course, was the design of the Orcs in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. While trying to figure out how to make an Orc costume that lived up to the movie imagery, I visited Alley Cat Scratch's Orc Costumes page, which had some interesting visual reference. I was also impressed by the Orc prosthetics developed by Aradani Studios, but I wanted to do a full-face foam latex prosthetic that would disguise my features more, and the Gaunt prosthetic from good old Scream Team fit the look I was going for very well (even though the piece was originally named Earl Grey and was designed for alien costumes; now as of 2006 Scream Team has new photos of the prosthetic rather cleverly done as Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). I also bought the Dark Prince prosthetic, which was done up as a very nice Orc (if a bit more of a dumb and animalistic one than I was going for) in one of the variants on Scream Team's page, just in case my first-choice prosthetic got destroyed like last year (that story under construction) or otherwise didn't work out, but luckily this didn't turn out to be necessary.
For coloring the prosthetic, I researched other options that were usable on foam latex besides rubber mask grease (RMG), since I had found it difficult to work with in the past due to it being so thick, sticky, and solidified. I had read a lot of good things about PAX Paint and was all set to try that, but then on FX Warehouse's site I came across alcohol-activated makeup. These come in palettes that look a a bit like watercolors, but you activate them with 99% isopropyl alcohol rather than water. There are a few different brands of these, but I ended up going with Skin Illustrator partially because I was impressed by the Pirates of the Caribbean and other custom palettes you could get, designed by Hollywood makeup talents such as Ve Neill.
The Skin Illustrator paints did indeed turn out to be quite easy to work with, although they're a bit drying to the skin due to all the alcohol you have to use to activate them. I mostly applied the makeup with a black plastic stipple sponge, and there was a bit of a tendency for a mottled look to be produced (which may have just been my technique), but this didn't bother me at all in this case since that look works great for unclean Orc skin. For some reason I had some trouble applying color at the top edge of the prosthetic to help hide it (maybe due to spirit gum residue there??), although the camera's flash is making it look worse than it did in person in the below shot (the daylight shots are a better representation of how it looked).
I also bought Skin Illustrator's FX Palette but I don't believe I ended up using any of those colors this time. I had hoped to recreate the skin tone of one of the freakier blue- or green-complexioned Orcs from the films, but my palettes didn't have highlight, midtone, and shadow variants of those colors, just single instances, and trying to rely on color mixing didn't seem to be a wise idea. Therefore I went with more traditional (if still a bit pig-like and inhuman-looking) flesh tones. I would definitely use Skin Illustrator again, although I may not have completely thrown over RMG yet — a Scream Team newsletter in 2006 had a tip that 99% alcohol works well for thinning RMG as well (I had tried thinning it with castor oil in the past, since that's the "grease" component of rubber mask grease, but with only moderate success).
After last year's disaster with Pros-Aide wrecking the prosthetic I was originally planning to wear (again, that story under construction), I was planning this year to only use Pros-Aide in one small area, around the mouth, since that's the one place I've always had trouble with spirit gum staying stuck (due to the greater flexion of the mouth compared to the rest of the face and due to contact with food, drink, and saliva). However, as I started to apply Pros-Aide to the backside of the lips of the prosthetic, I could see the thin edge was starting to fold over on itself, so I quickly wiped it off and went with spirit gum for the entire application. I didn't have time to do the step of blending the edges of the prosthetic by stippling liquid latex.
For the prosthetic ear tips, I ordered a bunch of different ones from Aradani Studios and elsewhere, but the ones that looked the most realistic and were the easiest to work with were the Woochie Evil Ear Tips that Aradani had for sale. These have very realistic cartilage structures, are made from translucent latex for a realistic look usually reserved for gelatin appliances used by Hollywood, and are cut to not cover your ear holes and to be easy to put on without lots of issues of the prosthetic sticking to itself. They're pre-colored a uniform light flesh color, but a little stippling of a darker color and they look quite realistic. The one issue they have is that the edges are not thinned, so there can be a noticeable line where they end halfway down the ear. Aradani's Grey Elf ear cuffs worked beautifully to conceal this line, however, and fit with the motif established by my nose ring.
Sadly, the Evil Ear tips were apparently discontinued by Cinema Secrets. Don't be confused by the product called Evil Ears, which is a different design made by Reel F/X. Luckily the Evil Ear tips are made such that they aren't likely to get damaged when taking them off, so at least I'll be able to re-use mine. Aradani is also no longer selling their Grey Elf ear cuffs, which were reportedly a design by wholesale jewelry company Fresco's, who apparently change their product line all the time and have not had these cuffs for some time. This sucks because one of mine apparently fell into the trash or something when I was taking off my costume, and thus far I haven't been able to find anyone selling a similar design that'd work well for Orcs.
For my eyes, I knew I wanted to get a new pair of theatrical contacts, but I
didn't know which ones. I was thinking of getting Crazy Lenses' Black Wolf design, but I never realized that brand is only available in
"plano" (non-prescription), which would require me to wear glasses with my
Orc costume.
I was really impressed by 9mm SFX's Caiman design, which looked just like the eyes of that one really scary Moria Orc who received a close-up face shot in Fellowship of the Ring. Since Moria Orcs are my favorites and I ideally wanted to look like one of them, these contacts were very tempting, but they were pretty pricey, and I was slightly concerned about trying full scleral lenses without an eye doctor's involvement. An anecdote about scleral lenses from http://wolfstone.halloweenhost.com/Costumes/fxcmai_FxContacts.html:
According to one story, Jim Carrey had to wear yellow scleral contacts for his "Grinch" movie. It was so painful that the production company got a Special Forces specialist in resisting torture to teach him how to endure the pain. It didn't work completely: many scenes were filmed without the scleral contacts and his eyes were digitally retouched.
I then discovered CLS Distributing (now renamed to the more appropriate Vision Science Studios)'s very impressive Custom Lenses line, the most affordable line of handpainted lenses I've come across, and the one with largest selection. The prescription versions were available for sale only in one place online (as far as I could tell), Cosplay Labs. The design I chose was, appropriately enough, Cave Orc, designed after the eyes of the more rank-and-file Moria Orcs. What I didn't realize is that these lenses were almost full scleral lenses as well. Luckily I didn't have a Jim Carrey level experience. More on this in a bit. Strangely, Cosplay Labs still has the CLS / Vision Science line but no longer carries the Cave Orc design.
For my teeth, I had bought the Moria Orc FX teeth from Dental Distortions (along with the Morlock design, in case that looked better), but I didn't get a chance to do the fitting until the morning of the 31st, and I could not for the life of me get a good working fit. I hadn't expected trouble, since last time I had fitted FX teeth (granted, a different brand, Scarecrow, and only uppers, not lowers), it had gone quite smoothly. Next time I will definitely be sure to do this particular step early. In any case, what I ended up doing was just staining my teeth with the Mehron Nicotine / Decay Tooth F-X. This looked okay, but it made my teeth kind of blend in with my skin tone, which robbed me of some ability to be scary with my mouth. At lunch, however, I ate a granola bar and this wiped off the Tooth F-X on the biting edges of my teeth. The resulting look was that the still-browned parts of my teeth were my gums, and my teeth were just worn-down little nubs. Definitely a good unpleasant look (click the below photo for the full-size version for a better view of this).
One other makeup item I had planned that didn't work out was that I was going to wear a bald cap and add some stringy strands of crepe hair. I had learned this year about the newer plastic (rather than latex) based bald caps whose edges you dissolve with alcohol, and bought one, but I was concerned that the alcohol from the Skin Illustrator paints would cause problems with it. (There's also a type whose edges require acetone to dissolve that probably would have been fine, but I didn't have one of those.) I tried to put on a normal Woochie latex bald cap, but cutting around my ears was giving me much more trouble than previous years I'd used one. I had one other bald cap I could have tried, but I was really running too short on time to do the crepe hair application, so I decided to just reshave the sides and back of my head (which I'd let get very shaggy for the benefit of the Harry Potter costume I'd worn earlier this Halloween) and slick back the top of my hair with hair spray. This style was kind of similar to the one worn by Mordor Orc Gorbag in The Return of the King.
For my armor, I ideally wanted something spiky and resembling the armor of the Moria Orcs. I found some appropriately spiky leather armor by Elad's, Schmitthenner, and others, but it was either too expensive or would take past Halloween to custom-make. Norton Armouries even makes an amazing lightweight polyurethane Moria Orc armor, but again, too expensive.
I finally settled on By The Sword's Leather Warrior armor, which was was spiky enough to work as Orc armor, was more affordable than other designs I'd looked at, and could be made and delivered to me in plenty of time for Halloween. One thing I hadn't anticipated was that when it arrived, the front and rear surfaces of the armor were as flat as a pancake. I needed to break in the armor to get it curved to my body shape. I tried to see if I could rig up a body form out of objects around the house, but this didn't work out — I had to wear the armor myself. Unfortunately the armor is almost impossible to put on yourself, but luckily my girlfriend helped me out with this. Wearing it for an evening while watching TV was enough to bend it into shape. The armor was a little squeaky at the joints, and I tried playing around with applying some baseball glove conditioner (which I'd bought to see if it'd help with the breaking in process, but it didn't seem useful for that). This seemed to help a little, but I didn't like the look of oily fluid oozing out of the joints so I didn't use it further.
My sword was easier to decide on than the armor had been. It would have been great to have a proper Moria Orc sword, but the only one I could find online was Kropserkel's polyurethane replica. They do not in general sell to the public; I tried emailing them to find out how much it would cost to commission one but they never replied. There was a plastic sword that was sold on several sites as an "Orc Sword", but it only vaguely resembled the Moria Orc sword, was clearly an Asian martial arts weapon being repurposed, and although it looked okay in the photo, I figured it was likely to look horribly fake and plastic up-close.
However, on Wholesalesword.com I found their amazingly substantial real metal Orc Sword, complete with sheath, for only $19.99!! This was truly the amazing bargain of my costume. Now, the Lord of the Rings purists out there will note that this is an Uruk-Hai sword, and from my makeup and armor that's clearly not the type of Orc I am, but since the Mordor Orcs have such a bitter rivalry with the Uruks, I figured I was probably one of the former who had stolen an Uruk's blade after having killed him (perhaps because his own had been broken in the fight). Makes the most sense to say that I'm supposed to be a Mordor Orc anyway, since they had the most visual diversity of the different Orc races in the films.
As for my clothing, my gloves were a no-name Chinese brand (the only distinguishing marks on the package are "Masquerade kit" and "Costume Accessories"). Pretty good quality for $12.99 fake leather gloves. I guess they were intended for use in pirate or similar costumes. I had bought some real leather gloves from Arms of Valour, and one other pair of fake ones, but I liked the pirate gloves best, even though I felt like they gave me a bit of a Klingon feel. The only issue with them is that the little faux buckles on the backsides don't have the usual prong piece, so you occasionally have to wiggle the straps tight again.
Not much to say about my Swordsman's Shirt — it worked very nicely, though the tail of the shirt is on the poofy side (worked fine with this armor). Also the cuffs are a real pain on the shirt, but it didn't matter for this costume since I was tucking the sleeves into gloves. More on the cuffs on the page for my 2006 Pirate costume (under construction). For pants, I had ordered a pair of Trews from By The Sword, but the pockets were shallow, I was concerned about the drawstring holding them up properly with all the pushing around around my armor would probably be doing, and the lack of a fly seemed to present some logistical concerns. Therefore I ended up ditching these and just wore some black khakis. The parts that would give them away as modern pants were covered by other costume items, so this worked out fine.
Another historically sound item from By The Sword that I had to ditch for a modern update was their Medieval Ring Belt. That old buckle-free design is a pretty terrible one, and I couldn't count on it to keep my sheath at a consistent elevation, so I just went with a modern belt.
Finishing off my clothes, my boots were re-used from my Headless Horseman costume (page under construction). I had ordered some Super Hero Boots which had a slightly spiky look that had seemed good for a Moria Orc, but though the M size was appropriate for my foot length (10 1/2), I could only barely zip the boots up the length of my calves (and I don't think I have abnormally large calves).
My costume was a hit. It easily won the Scariest prize at work:
At lunch time I visited my girlfriend at the public school where she works. I didn't realize there are no masks and no costume weapons allowed at the school (what a bummer — glad my private high school didn't have such rules on those occasions where they allowed costumes), and no visitors without a pass, so though most of the kids there loved my costume, campus security was not as pleased with me (reportedly they were called by some silly girl student who got scared as I walked by) and there was a bit of a ruckus.
But that was not the worst of my concerns by this point. My costume was... uncomfortable. VERY uncomfortable. I have endured wearing pretty uncomfortable costumes all day long before, but this costume was an order of magnitude or two worse than any in the past. There were several individual discomforts that were fairly bad on their own. My armor was very binding and restrictive. My scleral lenses were really irritating my eyes. My prosthetic only had tiny slits for nostril holes, and my hot breath was building up in there and causing my nose to run, and trying to blow it through the tiny slits did not work well at all. The liquid and the action of blowing was causing my prosthetic to start becoming detached from my nose and upper lip. On top of these factors, it was by far one of the hottest and dryest days of the year (welcome to Halloween in Southern California). And the dryness hit me especially hard because of all the alcohol I'd used to apply my makeup, and because the nasal blockage was forcing me to do all my breathing through my mouth. Having had to get up much earlier than usual (and without eight hours of sleep) to have time to put on my costume and still get to work in time for my team meeting and costume judging didn't help either. (In retrospect I'm kind of glad the FX teeth didn't work out, as they would have been yet another major discomfort.)
Any of these individual factors I could have toughed out for the whole day. Combinations of just some of them probably would not have been a problem. All of them at the same time, however, overcame me before the day was up. It wasn't just a conscious choice of "Wow, this is too uncomfortable — I think I'll take off the costume" — I felt physically ill and my body demanded I take it off. I therefore drove over to my Mom's house, who was luckily home, and she hurriedly took the beautiful non-work shots you see here. As soon as she'd finished off the rolls in her two cameras, I lumbered quickly inside and tore off the costume as quickly as I could (my Mom helping with the unbuckling of the armor). The aftermath was fatigue, dehydration, and extreme soreness and redness of my eyes (strangely, they hurt much worse after I'd taken out the lenses than while they'd been in). After a shower and some rest, though, I felt human again and was able to finish up my work day sans costume.
For my next costume I will definitely be ramping down the number of uncomfortable items. I felt that the armor was the worst culprit. I think I probably could have toughed out the rest if my torso hadn't been in the grip of that leather vise.
It was surprising how consistently good (if a little samey) most of the photos turned out, despite the haste with which my Mom and I took them, and the anguish my costume was inflicting upon me while I was doing my modeling. Also good is the out-of-focus but entertainingly demonic-looking photo of me marauding in the conference room taken by my coworker Ryan. Here are the rest of the photos.
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Dan Harkless
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