Its that time of the year when everyone is starting to wonder what they will dress up as for Halloween, here are some cool ideas! So you have been working hard at the gym for years, why not show off your physique a bit with a superhero costume. The pre-purchased costumes are lame and ill-fitting, make your own custom costume for a lot less with liquid latex, a speedo, a mask, and an accessory or two. For about $25 you can get enough latex to make a latex skin suit of just about any color you want so you can do superman, batman, robin, the green lantern, spider-man, x-men, Hellboy, Iron Man, Silver Surfer, the hulk, or wonder woman!
Please Order the latex NOW if you want to do this costume for halloween and have your choice of colors. The weekend before halloween they get swamped with orders and run out of stuff, don’t be one of those people! You want time to experiment a little with it too so you can make your mistakes before halloween day … like I did :) Lets cover some important points about making a latex costume other than reading the directions on the bottle carefully:
- Shave everything that you will be covering with latex or you will be very, very sorry. Any hair or stubble will act like a waxing depilatory and you do not want that, ask your girlfriend. If you have never body-shaved before, start today in case you screw up and it causes you to break out in zits because you don’t want to be Zit-Man. Shave the morning of halloween, not the day before.
- Buy the protective coating sold by the latex manufacturer. I thought it was optional, it is not. When the latex dries it looks like shiny armor .. but its more like liquid duct tape. If it merely touches something else that is latex it sticks permanently and pulling it away will destroy one surface or the other. The clear coat gets rid of the stickiness so the costume does not self destruct. If you want to save some money you could experiment with using something like hairspray instead of their expensive clear-coat.
- Areas where there is a lot motion are problematic because the latex will rather quickly get destroyed. Things like elbows and knees are fine because they don’t bend much. You might not live to regret doing armpits or crotch, especially crotch. What I suggest you do is to leave the “speedo area” un-latexed and then put on a speedo in your costumes color scheme *after* you are latexed and clear coated. You can get speedos of virtually any color of the rainbow for about $25. You can also latex over speedos if you want to get a more uniform costume appearance but if you do this, I would put on two speedos because you do not want the latex soaking thru to the hair in that area. Want to talk about pain? Make sure the latex does not become a torture device!
- You MUST have someone else do your latexing, period. As you see in my video, disaster results when you try to do your own. Although you may have the flexibility to reach every part of your body, when latex touches latex it self-destructs … until the clear coat is put on.
- Keep movement to a bare minimum while the latex is going on and drying. No flexing either, avoid the temptation for now. If you have to scratch your nose, have your assistant do it for you especially if you have big pecs or it will destroy the latex in the shoulder crease of the pec.
- Think about how you are going to be getting to your venues as stuffing yourself into a packed car can easily destroy a fabulous costume. Do it close enough to walk, or better yet, take the bus and remain standing.
- Its all about accessories! You don’t want people asking who you are, make it obvious. You don’t need all the characters accessories but make sure you have their most identifiable one. Batman needs the bat symbol but really nothing else. Superman needs an “S”, pretty simple too. You get the idea.
Superman: blue body latex, red speedo, red latex “S” painted on, red towel or fabric held on with safety pin for cape.
Batman: grey or black latex body with painted on yellow latex bat, black speedo, yellow belt, cheap batman mask.
The Hulk: green latex body, tattered blue jeans mid thigh length.
Captain America: Blue body latex with red and white accent colors, purchased shield, purchased mask.
Spider-man: red and blue body latex with latexed speedo to match – cheap purchased mask.
Prometheus: silver or white body latex and a diaper :)
Thats it! Have fun at halloween!
As you probably have guessed from the dated “silver surfer” costume, this video was filmed last year :)