Darth Mark

LJ and I threw a Halloween party last weekend. Too bad it was the weekend after Halloween, so the turn out wasn’t great, but that wasn’t the reason we threw it after all. Some of you may already know this, but for like the last year LJ has been working on a costume for me. “A year!?” you might exclaim. Yes, well perfection takes a while.

You see last year LJ made a Mary Poppins outfit that was bang-on perfect. She sewed together a skirt and a jacket. She knitted a scarf and even went to thrift stores to find just the right hat to then craft into looking exactly like the one Julie Andrews wore in the movie. It looked so good that she even got herself a parrot head umbrella to complete the ensemble. After her success with that she asked if I wanted a costume.

Seeing her prowess behind a sewing machine I knew that I could ask for damn near anything and it would be brilliant, so I asked for the best costume ever…Darth Maul. This turned out to be no easy feat. Not only did this costume require watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (the worst of all the Star Wars movies) over and over, it also required gathering little bits of costume data from across the net. You see while Mary Poppins was tricky to make there is about a zero percent chance that a fat, acne scared, virgin Poppins fanatic would pick apart her costume until she snapped. While Star Wars on the other hand is serious nerd territory and if I dawned this costume at any “Con” ever, or just walked past someone who knows what a Con is I would be subject to the strictest reticule. This really put the pressure on to make it exact.

Not to mention the different disciplines this costume required. There was fabric that had to look and flow a certain way. No patterns to go off of and a fair amount of leather work. Not to mention that I would have to wear full head prosthetics and make-up. LJ had to make a body mold of me to work on all the various robes while I was on my sessions. She actually got the whole thing finished the day of the party and I had a friend come over to do my make-up. We started at about 5pm and got done right at 8 (party time). The results? Spectacular. I was photographed all night and people kept asking about my costume. LJ and Nate (the friend) took great pride in this and rightfully so. For my part, I was able to sit still for three hours while having make-up applied, have the right body type, look menacing and kill people with the force.

Oh, I may have neglected to mention but my eyes weren’t photo shopped I am wearing prescription yellow and red contacts. They are great. I can drive or fight Jedi with them in. Since LJ was making the costume so precisely I felt a desire to help complete it with a perfect prop light saber. I had a guy make it for me out of condensed aluminum. Yes, it cost a lot, but damn it, if you are going to go through all the trouble of getting the make-up on, wearing special contacts and having the perfect costume why would you ruin it with some crappy knock-off, plastic toy? This beauty will be mounted on my wall next to all my other swords. Hell, the clasp on my belt is even movie correct.

So anyway, here are some of the pictures taken early on that night because we were worried about my paint coming off; it didn’t by the way.