Geek Street: Happy Geekow’een

Happy Geekoween!

The ultimate guide to bringing out your geeky side this all Hallows eve!

For me it’s the same every year.  I want a costume that makes people say: “that’s amazing”.  As the ever adamant, self-proclaimed geekette I also like a sharp element of uniqueness, something that does not fall into the category of witch, devil, zombie, or any other typically you might find stumbling through your local town centre on the Friday before Halloween; I particularly like to avoid the typically that involves showing as much flesh as possible.  So, here are a few tips and tricks to get you noticed, (mostly by fellow geeks, which always brings on a stronger sense of achievement than a wink from the bar staff!) and to unleash your nerdy personality in style.

Cheap Cosplay

There’s nothing more disheartening than ‘googling’ your desired character, only to find that to purchase a ready-made costume would be to re-mortgage the house, or sell your entire Master System II cartridge collection.  My way around this, is to look at the elements of the costume you can possibly construct yourself, and search for the stuff on Ebay.  Let me use my own costume last year as an example.

Being white-haired at the time, I was limited, Cosplay wise to either Storm of X-Men or Black Cat of the Spider-Man comics.  Since I don’t have the skin for Storm, I went for Black Cat.

This whole costume was constructed by myself, really easily in fact and at a really low-cost.  I’m no great seamstress, so any part I could glue, I did and that includes the fur around my boots and gloves.  The whole costume consisted of a black leotard, a black corset, white satin gloves, white boots, a choker with a cat tag and a mask I cut myself out of a t-shirt and used eyelash glue to stick to my face.  All in all, we’re talking about £30 for the lot, including the boots.  I got everything from Ebay in the end and was pretty impressed with the overall result.

So, if you’re into your graphic novels, films or game characters, self-made Cosplay is a really great alternative to shipping in an expensive costume from Japan.

Need more inspiration? Check out images of the big conventions, Comic Con and the like.  There’s plenty of Cosplay ideas to half-inch, some better than others granted…

Gamer Costumes

Another simple idea is to search through the big online costume sellers and price up some seriously geeky gamer gear.

One of my personal favourites:

Jokers Masquerade is one of the biggest UK sellers of costumes and accessories.  The prices are really reasonable and you can find some really good gamer stuff.  They have a whole section dedicated to the computer game lovers among us.

Nail Art

Not in the mood for dressing up? Use your nail art talent and get your fingertips noticed. Nail art is in big time in 2012, the more obscure/brightly coloured the better, so why not splash out on some vibrant colours and nail art pens?

On a budget? The brand ‘W7’ is a great O.P.I dupe and can be found in most high street cosmetic stores and marketplaces   Look online for their vast colour ranges.  Apply a clear topcoat to prevent these highly pigmented nail paints from chipping away.

Not very ambidextrous? Paint small nail designs on Clingfilm using a toothpick, nail art pen or dotting tool, leave to dry, carefully peel off and apply to freshly painted nails.  Apply topcoat.  Boom! Alternatively, buy some cheap false nails and paint your design onto them before gluing them on.

Need Inspiration?

Geek Sugar:

Think Geek:

Geek Nails – Deviantart:

Horror Movie Style

Let’s bring the spirit of Halloween into the every day.  The autumn/winter season is officially upon us, but this doesn’t mean we have to abandon our nerdy style for our raincoats and scarves.  Here is my guide to geeking up your October wardrobe, inspired by the wonderful horror movie genre. Here are some of my fashion ideas guaranteed to get heads turning.

Steal Freddie’s Style.  Team the classic striped jumper with an extreme spiked ring and a trilby.

Candyman³  … Go Candyman mad with a faux fur coat, bumble bee ring and pink ribcage tee.

Grab Schwartzkopf’s new ‘Fiery Copper’ hair colour, some on-trend high heel sneakers and denim dungarees for a ‘Chucky look ‘like no other!

A necklace to mimic stitches, a hair waving device, dramatic black eyeshadow and a square neck ensemble will dress you up to be the bride of Dracula.

So this has been Geek Fashion, Halloween style.  I hope there’s a least a few ideas to get you geared up.  You’re never too old to go trick-or-treating in my opinion, and let’s face it, if you opened the door to Mario, Chris Redfield, or Kratos you’d be quite inclined to give away your Haribo a little more generously.