Gozer the Gozerian
Ghostbusters
- First worn to MegaCon 2015
- Spent around $240 on this costume, including wig & contacts
- Worked on this costume on and off for two months
When I was younger my sister was into My Little Pony and Barbie, I was into Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters. I definitely grew up a little tomboy and was a true child of the 80's when it came to my likes. I can remember first seeing Gozer in the film and thinking how cool and pretty she was, and how much I wanted to be her. Fast forward about 25 years and here I am finally living out a childhood dream and becoming Gozer the Gozerian!
I put A LOT of time and effort into researching the costume and picking up the supplies I would use to bring this project to life. Recent photos of the screen used costume reveal a lot of detail that you can easily miss in the movie. There is a lot more color to the suit and iridescent materials including rhinestones and other shines. I made a list of all the things I needed to make this costume and one by one I began to make my purchased and gather supplies.
First thing that needed to be made was the full body suit; I used Kwik-Sew Pattern #3052 in style A and made adjustments to have the zipper down the back instead of the front. I also had the sleeves come down to a point at my middle finger and I attached a loop of elastic to go around my finger and keep it in place. For my feet I made a sock bottom that covered my whole foot instead of having the legging cut off at my ankle. This way I could slip my shoes on and off and make walking and conventions much easier. For the fabric I definitely wanted to use spandex that had some shine to it so I purchased milliskin shiny 4 way stretch satin in off white from Spandex House. |
Once the sewing work was finished on the suit it was time for the real work to begin; the decorating! This was the part that I was worried about, as the theory made sense in my head but it was a matter of making it all come together. I sketched out all of the webbing designs and patterns so that I had a good idea of what to work off of. For the larger chest pieces I wrapped my dressform in plastic wrap and I then covered this in mesh netting. I drew the designs onto the netting and scaled it out to fit me. So what did I use to make the webbing on the costume? No joke, I used the fake spider web that you use to decorate for Halloween. Once the patterns were drawn onto the netting I began to hot glue on pieces of the web and I stretched and manipulated it until it looked just right. Since the webbing was white and I needed an off white color I spray painted everything once the initial shape was completed. For all the other pieces I drew out the patterns onto card stock and used the same layering technique with the plastic wrap, mesh netting and webbing. I then spray painted these as well once the shaping was done and pulled them off of the card stock.
|
Once the webbing pieces began to take shape it was a matter of adding all the pretty little details that would really make this costume pop! Part of my costume research was finding the perfect piece to recreate the bubbles that are on Gozer's costume. I settled on plastic Christmas ornaments; the type that pop apart so that you can fill them on the inside. I ordered two dozen of these which equaled out to 48 pieces and in the end I used about 40 in total on the costume. First thing I did was cover each half in a clear iridescent glaze so that the shiny plastic didn't show through. Then I used mesh netting glued around the edges to give each bubble a glue point to adhere to the suit. Before doing this I would fill some of the ornaments with shiny fabric or rhinestones to give some color to the costume.
|
Next step was adding all of the pretty little details! This was pretty tricky as too many pieces close together could be super tacky and not enough could make the costume look bare. I started small and worked my way out, I tried to keep bubbles in pairs where I could or I spaced them out far enough to keep things even. There is probably about 40+ hot glue sticks used on this costume as I used hot glue to adhere all of the little details. The costume has a mix of the decorated bubbles, beads, pearls, and rhinestones all over it. At a certain point I had to put the costume away in my closet as it was so easy to just keep adding to it.
|
Now that all of those pretty little pieces were finished it was all a matter of getting them onto the actual suit. For the chest and back pieces I wore the suit and had Trevor safety pin everything into place so that I could get an idea as to where they needed to be sewn. It was then a mix of hand sewing and machine sewing to get everything in place. For the legs of the costume I literally wore the suit and hand sewed everything into place, this took FOREVER and I was very cranky when I finally finished. By the time I got to the arms and smaller leg pieces I just went ahead and hot glued everything into place. Once all of the individual parts were in place I went over the entire suit and filled in the gaps with the extra web so that everything looked like one piece. I then sprayed over the whole suit to make the fabric and webbing color more even and matching.
|
Whew this costume was an epic journey! I pulled the look together with some much needed accessories. I of course needed some super cool contacts so I went with a really nice red pair from Pinky Paradise. Next on the list was a wig and I found the perfect match on eBay, after some styling help from Hoodedwoman it was ready to go! For the shoes I used a pair that I had in my closet, I also covered them in webbing and beads and spray painted them for the right color. I had some fun with the fake spiders that came with the webbing and added them on there. Once the con came around it was just a matter of having fun with crazy make up and bringing this monster of a costume to life! In the end I used about 40+ plastic bubbles, 40+ glue sticks, 3 full bags of fake spider web, 2 cans of spray paint, A LOT of beads & pearls and of course lots of love and dedication.
|