Lilith - Darkstalkers
How it’s made :
I have wanted to make this costume for years and years! I loved the game series growing up, and I would love to make every single costume from the game. Most my friends shared a love for the game too, so for Animazement 2006 it was decided we would do a Darkstalkers skit. The idea behind the skit was to start off as an over-the-top drama skit (poking fun at this style of skit, and just hamming it up a bit) Then to bust out into Thriller! We had a lot of fun learning the Thriller dance, and the skit went over really well!
When I sat down to design this costume I really wanted to make sure that the wings could stand on their own and not have to hang on string like all the other Lilith costumes I had seen. I came up with the idea of building a corset under the bodysuit that could house the wings and support. I had to make sure it would work for both my costume and the Morrigan costume Lindze was making as we wanted to match. Her corset was tricky because there was so much less of it. Lindze made the bodysuit of my costume for me while I worked out the wings themselves. I made a few prototype head wings to figure out what we would need to do before making the large ones. In the end, I made them from a combo of wire, fabric, plastic and foam. They are coated in latex to give them a fleshy look and feel. I made the head wings first and soldered them to nuts that could attach to a screw in a headband under the wing. This way we could remove them to pack, or just brush out the wigs.
The big wings were tricky due to the size. I built the base, we used a baby pool to dip them like I did the head wings. We dunked each wing and made sure to paint the latex on so it was even and smooth. In retrospect, we could have just painted the latex on, but we were figuring it out as we went. We hung the wings to dry and moved on tot he next bit.
The tights and gloves were hand dyed by Lindze. She was dead set on getting just the right color, and after a few test stockings, she did just that! She also really wanted to make sure we made the bats with the eyes like in the Capcom art. A lot of people forget to give the poor little guys eyes. Lindze made a template and we cut out a ton of bats. I airbrushed the bats on Lindze with the help of Mikel, and Mikel airbrushed them on me with the help of Lindze.
The boots we bought were matching pairs, but we had to cut them down to chance their shape. I replaced the black zippers in my boots with red ones.
The feathers were another thing I wanted to make sure looked correct. We could find no feathers that looked just right so I had the idea to make them from scratch. Basically, they were cut down from larger feathers, the spine was removed so they wouldn’t be stiff. A new spine was made from ribbon so they would be soft and flexable. This took forever and they were prone to breaking. Lindze has had to replace her feathers a few times due to the design of her costume and the long hair mucking them up. Mine managed to survive.
Lindze was in charge of hunting the wigs. My first wig didn’t work out so well, but the second wig I got for this costume was ideal. She also tracked down the contacts for the costume.
Make up –
Sarah Strange
Photo credit –
Ryan Fowler