I knew I'd done very well two years ago when I incorporated the stilts into my costume as the Scarecrow. I'd landed 2nd place and many folks (myself included) felt I'd been robbed because the person who won was a "favorite" of the owner, and the owner has final say in the standings, so...yeah.
Anyway, I looked on-line for costume ideas that stilts would lend themselves to and after discarding several silly ones, I opted to give Jack Skellington a try. I've never seen the movie (Nightmare Before Christmas) but was familiar with the character, and I thought maybe I'd have a chance to create something that resembled it, kinda sorta.
First thing was to try and find as much of the outfit at the party store as I could. Looking online, they stores said they sold the pants and the jacket - cool! I'd buy two sets and use one set of pants to cover the stilts. Well come to find out the stores lied because after checking three different locations, it turned out that all they sold was the suit jacket. No pants. Damn.
Ok, on to some thrift stores to buy pinstriped dress pants. The only problem was the pinstriping was extremely light in comparison to the jacket so something had to be done...
I bought a white fabric marker which (according to its label) would make short work of brightening the lines but alas; the marker sucked a bunch of eggs. You couldn't see the lines any better, even after dragigng the marker back and forth several times. So now what...well, let's see what I have for paint in the cellar.
Score! I've got some leftover KILLZ mildew-resistant paint (bright white!). Couple that with a small, fine-tipped paintbrush, and I was off and running...
Well, "running" is not the right word for it. This was a slow crawl! It took me almost 6 hours of painstaking line tracing before I had a double set of pants that would work - and I was only painting every other line!
But at least they were done. Next up; the head and Bat Tie. I managed to find some hard-sided foam board which I doubled up and then cut out the shape of the Bat Tie (bow tie), as well as scribed and then painted (with KILLZ) the bat face and the erratic lines that apparently are a trademark of Jack's silly Bat Tie.
Now the head...But what to use? I'd found a simple mask at one of the party stores, but man, that thing was lame as anything. There was no way I could use that - I'd laugh myself out of the contest, let alone what anyone else would think.
A trip to a hobby supply store with a coworker turned very fortuitous; she found a couple of large styrofoam half spheres which she suggested I use. Had I seen these, I would have dismissed their viability, but she seemed confident they'd work, and the more I thought about it, I thought sure, why not.
So it was home to Google Image Search some pics of Jack's face...and then I took a stab at things. And I'll tell ya, I was pretty surprised at how well things came out...
A quick trip back to the hobby store for some black paint for the eye sockets, and voila!
While at the hobby store, I'd also bought some black screen material to cover the eyes from the inside so folks couldn't see my eyeballs.
Then it was off to wrap the stilts with the 2nd set of painted pants (the pic came out very dark, but I think you can make it out)...
Hmmm...now how to hold the two head halves onto my own head. I thought magnets would work great; glue magnets to one side, and glue/insert roofing nails into the other half (roofing nails because they have large, wide heads - all the better for attracting the magnet). I Googled using superglue on Styrofoam and was given the green light, so I drilled out a countersunk hole for the magnet to sit flush, applied a healthy dollop of superglue and set the magnet in with a healthy press, and set things aside.
About 10 minutes later, I came back to check on things and OH NOOOO!!!! The superglue was dissolving the Styrofoam and it had almost created a huge hole in the top of the head! I quickly dabbed at the still-working superglue with some paper towels to stop the chemical reactions and fortunately caught it in time that the almost-hole through the top was held to a paper-thin layer of Styrofoam left.
So now what? Well, I needed to put some tape across that almost-hole to protect it, and since I'd bought white duct tape as a backup plan, that seemed like my best option as this time. So, I laid a strip across the top, from one half to the other, then laid a solid strip horizontally (parallel to the seam between the two halves) laying it on top of the vertical piece I'd laid first, and everything was held in place like a nice hinge.
So that was the top. What about the bottom? Well, I'd need it to be something easy and quick to secure and remove, so I just applied a small strip at the bottom, on each side of my neck hole (oh yeah; I'd cut the bottoms of the halves to they would fit snugly around my neck), and I was in business!
Next was how to affix the Bat Tie to my jacket....I opted to go with using velcro...
I quick selfie and hot damn - this thing is coming together! (I tried wearing the gloves for the pic but my phone wouldn't recognize my fingers while they were covered in the material so I had to opt for gloveless.)
It was time for a celebratory beer!
The next morning was go-time. I got everything transported to work, got myself set up on the stilts, checked all the connections, connectors and other assorted things, put my head on, stood up and did my first walkabout.
The reception was amazing - folks were asking to take my picture, and take their pictures with me. Hey, this seems like a pretty good sign that I may do well today! But what's this? About 5 minutes in, it hit me that my head was overheating - quickly! I mean sure; Styrofoam is an insulator but I (foolishly) hadn't expected things to be THIS warm! Hold crap, after only 10 minutes, I needed to head back to my desk for a breather.
Undoing and removing the head was like heaven; cool, fresh air! But I knew that exposure is key to doing well, so after I'd cooled off, it was back with the head, and back out and about. But again, I only lasted about 15 minutes before the sweat was literally dripping down my face and into my eyes. (I'd considered putting one of those small PC fans into the back of the head, but that would have really taken away from the whole "solid head" appearance, so I scrapped the plan.)
To keep a long story from being too much longer, I managed to make it through the day, using short burst appearances before disappearing back to my desk to cool off. Later in the afternoon, the email went out for us to cast our votes (on-line) for our favorite costumes, and then it was off to the party.
The wait seemed like forever, but eventually the top vote-getters were called up on stage to show off our stuff, and then the winners were called out, starting with the bottom and working up to #1. As the names were called and I was still unnamed, my hopes got higher and higher. And then there I was; just two people left and there was a pause...the other person was called as 2nd place, and then my name was finally called out! The place went wild! Yeah, Dave finally won! After all these times of being robbed, he'd won! (A friend of mine later commented that I was the Susan Lucci of the Cognex Costume Contest.) :-D
Later in the evening, when things had settled down, one of the girls in charge of tallying the votes pulled me aside and said that not only had it been a landslide with the employee vote, but it'd also been a landslide with the execs, too. Sweet!!
So what did I win? I landed myself a 65" Samsung Flat Screen TV! (I don't yet know where to put it in my house, but hey; First World Problem, right?)
I'd love to think that I'll ease back now and maybe even go into semi-retirement next year. Go with something nice and comfortable, rather than the usual over the top, very hot and uncomfortable thing that I always seem to do to myself.
But I know that come next year, I'll probably want to try and defend my title, so we shall see.
I've got 362 days to think of something (yeah...I know; I'll probably wait until 5 days beforehand again.)
But that's next year's problem! For now, it's time to enjoy the win!
Fright Hard, Take Home First Place!
