Well with giving myself two weeks to get a cosplay outfit of Harley Quinn done for Halloween, I realized that I did not have enough hours in the day to do this justice or right but still pressed on. Amazingly, I finished it in time for last weekend, and even won 2nd place at the local bar’s costume contest, and a 50 buck gift certificate! I definitely has some things to tweak before I go to a Comic Con (and this costume was not appreciated. Everyone thought I was a slutty/crazy nurse), but I was happy with the result!

Halloween pool with fruit stripes zebra

Thigh Boots:

I had found online that you could build duct tape boots off of sandals. However, after thinking about my skills, I realized this wasn’t going to happen…..

My slacker way:

I took an old pair of knee high boots from good will and covered each with duct tape. (One was red and the other was purple. ) However, I had a problem. Harley Quinn had thigh high boots, mine were knee high . To fix this problem, I measured the height up to my knees, and then made a a duct tape strip that made up the difference. Once, I had the strip, I cut it out to resemble her boots and used black duct tape to accent it. If my boots had zipped in the back, I could have duct taped it in (it will hold securely without duct tape if your boot is tight, mine did but I wanted extra piece of mind), but since mine zipped in the back, I had to first duct tape the add on and fit it to my thigh, then place my boot on, and duct tape it together.

The look, though was amazing and only took a couple hours to complete.

The corset:

I had originally wanted an actual corset out of duct tape (ribbing and everything), however I found myself working on it the day before I was to go out, so that was out of the question for me.

My slacker way:

I decided to make a belt for the shirt I sewed up. I started by measuring my waste. I then made a belt that was about six inches small than it in the primary color red. Harley’s corset was red with a purple center. To make this look, after I had made the red belt, I made a smaller purple belt ( at 8 inches or so.), and duct taped it on on end (about three inches in) to the backside of one side of the belt. I then poked matching holes on each side and laced it up with red ribbon. I kept it loose enough to slide on and then used the lace to tight it.

Note:

The corset was tight enough to stay up on its own and the purple strip stayed in place, however, I wanted more security again. I taped the other side of the corset (the purple belt underneath to the red belt) and then made straps for the corset by cutting one long strip of duct tape in half and rolling it. I had to tape myself into it, but it really looked well and worked!

Make up:

I used make-up for all of it, minus the white base which I used Halloween white base. For the mask, I used a black and a purple eye shadow, and used black eyeliner to sharpen the edges.

Other notes:

Do not use Rite Dye for dying the tube socks. It will not take. I followed the instructions and after dying it twice, my red one was pink, my purple one was sort of blue. I ended up using puff paint afterwards.  It did not work very well either. It was streaking, took multiple coats (I could only get two in with my time) and you should double the drying time.)

Anyway, for anyone wanting to make this costume, hope it helped, and if you have any questions, post here and I can answer them. I know this was a short account of how I did it.

Oh and HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone!