Halloween – the most wonderful time of the year

Ah, I love Halloween… I’m sitting here after my usual manic Halloween party weekend blitz of work.  The snow is falling outside (has been for a week now) and will be continuing.  The weather forecast for Halloween Day is -10 for a HIGH and -24 for a LOW… should keep the “tricks” to a minimum this year.  That is why costumes are designed to go over snowsuits up here.

The last time we had this much snow this early was 2006.  I didn’t get a chance to rake the front yard or clean up my flower beds so will have to deal with it in the Spring.  I did get the planters emptied, but had to bring them into the garage to thaw out first before I could get the dirt to come out.

This year I had some appointments booked Friday night, my usual Saturday morning down at the park painting up the haunters for the Haunted House, then back home for appointments the rest of the day till late, then a birthday party booked for today, Sunday… This year I promised myself that I would take photos of EVERYTHING…. I almost managed it.  I let one really cool Neon coloured monster leave without getting a photo… bummer ’cause it was really cute!  I’m hoping to stalk a photo of it down on Facebook!  And I didn’t take any photos at the birthday party.

My regulars have all booked for next  year already – and their friends too, so I am almost fully booked for 2013 and it isn’t even Halloween 2012 yet.  One wants body painting so we’ve blocked off two-hours for him – he was a last-minute Avatar last year and this year had a photo of some tribal warrior body paint that he wanted which I rushed through with Vinny’s help… Vinny had only booked “face painting” for four people, so I didn’t book enough time to do a proper job… it was okay but could be much, much better as I could make sure to have other products to make a better job of it. It still looked pretty good.

And Chris, who comes twice every year – he won best costume at Rock City last year with the Evil Jester make-up I did, won best costume, again, but at the Shark Club this year!  He stopped by to give me half of his prize money this evening… he was so excited.  He is already planning next year’s costume.

So here are photos from this weekend – please keep in mind that customers bring me images of what they want and many are copies of other artists’ work.  I paint what the customer wants.  Some are done without references but others are exact copies as that is what the customer insisted on, so, thanks to the original artists for the great ideas for some of these designs.

First, this is Chris, who won best costume at The Shark Club last night:

He had three photos he’s found on the net and I picked the one I liked the best and painted it.  He had his hair seriously spiked AND had gel nails put on and filed to points – he goes all out!

Next is a friend of Chris’… didn’t get his name  but we called this a Kabuki Skull… I started out going for a half skull due to his beard but it ended up looking like a kabuki mask so I added the red:

The next ones are Vinny’s group.  Vinny comes every year with his posse… this was the first year he actually made an appointment!  He booked for four face paintings but one of them wanted body painting… I lectured them about telling me about it in advance so I can schedule enough time to do a proper job.  Vinny helped me with the body painting on Colin to get the base on while I worked on details… for a rush job it turned out pretty close to what Colin wanted.  And he booked for a body painting for next year on the spot.

First was The Reaper – he had a specific image he wanted with the really wide mouth and he wanted the eyes on the lids:

Then Vinny got painted as a wolf – in this photo he is posing in a way that I think he meant to be “sexy” … hmm, not sure about that but he is dressed in a sexy Red Riding Hood costume with glow sticks inserted in the hood.

And here are Vinny and I painting Colin… you can see Colin is holding a tablet with the image of what he wanted on it so we could refer to the image.

And here is the finished painting… he added a wig and cloak later.

I also painted a couple of scary clowns:

This next one is Manda who is a regular… she’s also got some sfx wounds and gore… after she left my place she was going to be trashing the costume and dousing herself with blood… I thought the costume was great as it was but she’s into the splatter.

I also did a couple of sugar skulls.  The first wanted exactly like the image she provided which was a black and white photo of a stylized half skull:

And then there was this one.  She had a photo of a red one that she wanted that she showed me but I didn’t refer to it as I painted… I did it, showed her the mirror, she liked it, I took photos.  Then suddenly this afternoon I was sitting here and I though OMG I forgot to …!!!  Can you see the mistake?

It would be an easy fix … but I am so embarrassed!

Then I did a grey zombie which I quite like – it was done to match the wig cap he had:

This next one is another of my regulars who brought his significant other with him this year – they are a Corpse Bride and Groom.  He’s long dead and they met when she was buried so she is fresher.  I hope to see photos of them in costume at some point.

And here is a pretty spider witch.  She had some photos – one of Lynne Jamieson’s spider crawling out of the mouth that seems to have gone viral lately.  She decided that it wouldn’t last until the evening so opted for a spider on the cheek:

The next two I painted for the annual haunted house down at the park:

A zombie:

A blue witch:

At the party this afternoon, which was all girls, I did a lot of matching costumes and the rest were all glamourous eyes.  One little girl had a gorgeous Grecian gown with typical Greek patterned trim.  She just wanted her eyes done, so I did gold with black liner and replicated the pattern from the trim on her dress…. then, of course, I did about a dozen more.  But they were all different.  All of the children were in costumes, really great costumes, and not one duplicate.  Really impressive.

It was -12C when I left to go to the party… and about a foot of fresh snow.  I had to park about a block away and struggled to drag my rolling trolley through the snow.  Had just as much fun getting back to the car too.

And, the best part is… tomorrow I go to the bank!

I love Halloween… and I still have a couple of bookings on the 31st!