We attended a time travel theme party, and I went with the clockwork automaton costume idea. Originally, I had conceived it as Mattie from squirrel_monkey's The Alchemy of Stone, but I didn't really have all the details right (no face mask, no springy fingers...), and alas my friends have not read the book (which is an excellent book! I recommend it!), so they wouldn't have gotten the reference anyway. Still, it was a fun costume, and clockwork automatons are something most people can relate to.

So here I am:


Click on any picture to see larger sizes on Flickr.

( more pictures and costume geekery under the cut )


And finally, here I am with CapLynn all ready to go meet some other time travelers. Cap won a prize for best free form costume with her Flying Purple People Eater concept, because really now, what a great costume! In the final version she even sprayed her hair purple, which is always a good idea, I think.

The costumes at the party were off the hook! My favorite I think was Geoffrey's Gothic Sack of Rome costume. He did black lipstick and eyeliner (Gothic!), covered himself with canvas sacking, covered that in rude Latin scrawlings, and carried a broken slab of marble. So awesome!

Other excellent costumes included The Prisoner, complete with menacing white balloon; Where's Waldo (incredibly true to life... er, picture book...); Amelia Earhart (with feather eyelashes! Apparently the time away from our world made her more volitant than before!); And a Regency lady and Civil War Union Officer couple. The last two were both handmade by the Regency lady, and were truly awesome. They won best costume prizes for time travel and craftmanship categories, while the Gothic Sack of Rome won best concept (because, dude, Gothic Sack of Rome!!!).

And now, winter begins.