I'll "B"e Good for Halloween!

 

Happy Halloween everyone! :0)

     I have saved this little tid bit JUST for today!  As I sit here and enjoy this new herbal tea I found called Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride, because I couldn't resist leaving something called that on the shelf, and also enjoy this really stinky but absolutely delicious aged cheddar cheese with some pecans, thanks to my new low-carb vegetarian diet, I am also enjoying listening to/watching The Monster Squad, because I apparently am self-diagnosed with latent A.D.D.  For those of you who don't know, The Monster Squad is the 80s B-Version of The Goonies. For those of you who don't know what The Goonies is, God help you.  Once again, thanks Lou. This movie has to be one of the best gifts I have ever been given. I LOVE this movie and I have to say I really LOVE cheese...  Anyway, I get off topic (A.D.D.) Why am I doing this?  It's Halloween. Nothing says Halloween more that Christmas tea, Cheese and the Monster Squad... OK so maybe it's not the most exciting way to spend a Tuesday evening.  Halloween, however, is Very exciting and the best part of it for me is making one's own costume.
     So Why go through the effort, huh?  Well I'll be honest, besides a party, It's the most fun I have with the holiday.  I, unfortunately was the only sibling in my family that was never allowed to go trick-or-treating. I know, it is truly sad to have missed out on that during childhood.  Long story short, my parents were very religious for a while... and then they got over it.  Alas, my childhood was stuck within that interim.  W.W.F.S.? (What Would Freud Say?)  Freud would tell me to make some bad-ass costumes. That's what Freud would say. So I do.
            


     I have provided a few snap shots below of costumes from Halloween past, but I will mainly focus on How I made an E.T.  Yes, ladies and jelly-spoons, I made my very own Extra-Terrestrial and had it mounted to a bike.  The inspiration for this crazy venture was pretty obvious for me.  E.T. is my 3rd favorite movie of all-time (or at least all my time on this planet ;0P.)   My partner and I recently took our nine-year old to Universal Studios in Orlando.  There is of course the E.T. ride.  Even though I own a copy of the film (both the 1982 and 2002 versions), I hadn't watched it in quite some time.  The trip to the theme park re-kindled that old flame.  Not to mention, some of my family members sent to me some vintage E.T. gifts for my birthday earlier this past Summer.  I think the Universe, and not just the Studios, was trying to tell me something.

     So after deciding to be Eliot from E.T. I had to figure out how I was going to handle the most important prop of my costume, my little alien friend.  I decided I could build him out of paper-mache, wire and foil, like how I create other props for my previous costumes.  My part of the costume was easy. I found a red hoodie and had E.T. ironed on to it.  Thanks Monograms-An-More for doing such a great job for me. 


     I had help with setting up the base that I would build E. T. on in the milk crate.  I wound and shaped a wire frame to use  as the base for my E.T. sculpture.  Next I added the foil layers to make a more secure structure for the paper-mache.

 

     "Come on! Don't be chicken shit!" says Pheobe as she tries to use the Frankenstein Monster as collateral to gain membership into the Monster Squad.... Sorry A.D.D. moment.  I Love it that I can see Frankenstein's Monster use the word "bogus."

     Anyway, I added on the Paper Mache to the Head of the sculpture.  Since I was going to cover most of the crate with a white sheet, the head was really all I needed to build. Until my sense to overachieve kicked in and said, "Lewis, you need to make hands too."

     So, I made hands.  Then it said to me, "Lewis, how TOTALLY AWESOME would it be if you could find a way to make his finger glow.  So I made it happen.  I admit I did have some engineering help from my partner.  He did help me figure out how to wire the finger so that I could flip a switch to turn the glowing finger on and off. But that little voice didn't stop there.  It mentioned a glowing heart....

... the flowers that bloomed than wilted with E.T.'s health...
....what about the speak and spell that E.T. used to phone home with...

     I even had a small tape recorder that played sound clips of things E.T. said from the film, not to mention the Flying Theme music as well.
Unfortunately, the volume on the recorder was SO low that you couldn't hear it over the rest of the banter from both of the Halloween events I went to this past weekend.  After spraying my hair with black color hair spray, completely shaving my goatee and my side burns so that I could look more like a 7 year old boy (I do not want to know what Freud might say about that) and mounting the E.T. sculpture to the bike, I am ready for Halloween. :0)

    I think I use my annual creative Halloween Costume Project as yet another way to not have to grow up completely...

"Wolfman's Got Nards!"... sorry did it again... This movie is really quite amusing.

     Like Peter Pan, there is a small part in all of us that never wants to grow up.  I hope that part is shining this Halloween.  Cheers to you all that had fun making your clever costume.  Happy Halloween! :0)

Keep sketching, keep thinking, keep laughing and most important of all, keep making art. 
Cheers,
LEWIS

P.S. as promised here is a few of past years fun:

 Max (Where the Wild Things Are)

 Charlie Chaplan

Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder Brand)

 Scarecrow/Michael Jackson (The Wiz)