Costume Creation

The Cognex work party has come and gone.  I did quite well - all day long, folks were coming up and telling me that my Scarecrow costume was the best they had EVER seen at Cognex (we've been doing this contest thing for over 20 years, so that's not a shabby compliment).

At the after-party, where the winners get announced, I had folks that didn't even work at Cognex coming up and asking to take pictures with me, and saying how awesome it was.  Sweet!

So I was buying in to the whole thing pretty deeply by the time the winners were announced.  How did I do?  2nd place.  Say what?  Yep; I lost to a semi-exec that is a favorite of the owner (he makes the final decision over what order the winners are).  I literally thought the crowd was going to start changing Bull Shit!  Bull Shit!  but apparently we all like being employed too much to do that.

For the rest of the night, I did have coworkers coming up and telling me that I got royally f'd over, and now back at work this week, I keep having folks coming and saying the same thing.  So it eases the pain a little bit, knowing that everyone else knows I got jobbed.

But enough about that, on to more fun things.  Saturday (Halloween, proper), I brought the costume over to Ed & Susan's for the annual driveway Trick or Treat party.  Matty, Bill and Tara, and some other friends of theirs showed up as well and we got lots of laughs out of utilizing the scarecrow.  Some of the little kids were too scared to get close until I'd pull the mask off and hunker down to say hello.  Others would walk right up to me, asking questions ("Is that a real bird?", "Are you really that tall?"), which was awesome.  One little girl, dressed as a magician, raised her staff at me and shouted "I command you to DANCE!", so I started hopping about, exclaiming that I didn't know what was going on, and why were my legs moving on their own.  She loved it and it put her at ease.

Then there was the group of tweens who came in, got their candy and marveled at the costume, then mosied on down the street to other houses.  On their way back, they called down the driveway, saying things like "We're not afraid of you, Scarecrow!".  Well, that was all well and good until I started up the driveway after them.  I wasn't running, but with those stilts on, my strides were covering a lot of ground, and in no time, I was chasing them down the street.  All in good fun!  They were screaming and laughing and I was doing my best not to get going so fast that I flopped forward onto my face (my arms were still outstretched to the sides, due to the wooden handle across my shoulders).

How about some pics?  I took a few of the headpiece as I was making it, and here are also some pics from the party, and from Halloween...

Here's near the starting point.  I'd bought the face mask, stapled it to a hat, and then stapled burlap around it.

 I didn't like the simple edging against the mask, it looked too much like an English knight's armor or something.

So I took pieces of burlap, crunched them up until the threads were pointing in different directions, and then glued them to the edges.

I next had to glue the rope around the neck.  The first piece was the hardest to figure out.  It took me several tries before I was able to mark where I wanted it to go, and then glue it into place.  After that, the next two pieces (three, total), were easy to glue on.

 

Nice.  Now we're getting somewhere.

But the neck flared too much.  I needed something to hold the back together so the headpiece would be more form-fitting around my head.

So a bit of Velcro near the top, and some wire to hold the edges of rope together...

 

...and I was good to go.

 

 I was all done with the headpiece and taking a break for the night.  Made and ate dinner, and was doing the dishes in the kitchen...when I had a feeling I was being watched.  I looked over at the headpiece, half expecting it to now be looking at me (creeeeepy!!), but nope, it was still facing the opposite direction.

But as I looked at it, I still had the feeling it was looking at me...and then I saw it.  (Click on the pic to enlarge it and then look at the TV screen...)

Ok, well...let's go out to the porch and get moving on the legs, shall we?

This part wasn't hard, but it did take some time.  I'd picked up some corn stalks from Home Depot and had to cut them a bit, so that I'd stand high enough to not be obscured by them.

Here's one leg done, and one leg to go.  (Did I mention that with the stilts on, I stood 7.5 feet tall?  It was awesome to be tall for a change!)

My last post showed you how it looked from the front.  Here's a look from the back (LOL, my friend Ann felt it was necessary to take this pic.)  I couldn't walk with my arms out to the side because it would have been too wide for the hallways.

 And now on to Ed & Susan's Halloween night party.  Here's a few shots that Ed took of me in their graveyard.  I cropped the last one down to get a closer look at things.

Man, this was so much fun!  There were kids (and adults) who began showing up, asking about the Scarecrow they'd been hearing about.  And, later when I was home, Susan texted me to say they had some friends come by late-night who were inquiring about the "Scarecrow at Ed & Susan's house".  Apparently word had made it around the neighborhood!  So I think it's safe to say that I will be breaking this costume out again next year.

So there you go.  My Halloween costume for this year.  It's definitely my favorite costume so far.  I wonder if I can top it (for my work party) next year...

One last pic, from my work party.  I stood in a corner and struck the pose.  With the lighting off to the sides, people thought I was just a prop...up until I moved.  Then they'd jump.  Which was awesome.  :-)

Fright Hard, Get (scared) Glances!