Costumes!
The Detetctive
There isn’t really much to say on the detective’s costume except that it’s the cliche costume, a pageboy cap, brown coat and a white blouse plus generic pants. (as you can see, the detective in the picture is different from the one in the performance, but the outfit remains the same!) but the fact that it's so cliche and plain and boring adds to the characterisation of the detective, who loves to solve mysteries and is very determined as all detectives do! YOU GO DOCTOR D (generally detectives are that way aren't they. SHERLOCK HOLMES????)
The Painter Twins (Disa and Pear)
These two are painters that are trapped in the painting, so in order to make them seem like part of the painting, we decided to make their costumes look like abstract parts of a painting, taking inspiration from the two pictures on the left/above.
At first, we were kind of skeptical whether it wouldn’t give off the painter vibes given that twins had disappeared from the real world first, but afterwards got stuck in the VR world. we were also unsure whether this would be a viable option, when we had another where the twins would wear ½ black ½ white aprons and there would be paint splatters, showing how they've been in the VR world for quite long and the splashes showing how it affected their “painting” → the apron. But afterwards, we just went with it because it was a vibrant switch of costumes and more creative. We followed the outfit here, where we took a normal striped shirt and put spare cloth on it to make the colours random and “abstract”. we also made them wear two halves of a dirty apron, where we cut them apart; this shows how they’re literally two halves of each other. Lastly, we painted the faces of the twins to accurately represent that abstract art theme we were going for in their costumes, following the photos we used as inspiration.
The Moth
First off, the mask! It was made from a cardboard base, around 15 pipe cleaners for the head, the plastic part of a chapteh when you strip it of its base and feathers for the antennae, and green cellophane paper for the eyes. At first, manoeuvring in it was tough and we could not do proper rehearsals as the moth was fumbling around in the mask and banging into everything. The problem was that the mask (more like a helmet) was too big and the moth couldn’t actually see in it, so we decided to make it smaller. problem solved, moth finally could see, no more banging into sets.
Second of all the wings. In following a moth’s natural wings, we decided to reuse this brown cloth with patterns because. you know what moth wings are like... (picture above for reference!)
We tried to replicate the “eyes” on a moth’s wings by painting dark brown circles with red on the inside with random streaks of yellow in the middle. so that it would not only be more obvious that the moth, well, WAS a moth. it was also to represent the moth trying to intimidate the detective and the twin painters so they stay away from the credit (the moth’s food). the lining on the wings we tried to replicate as well by hot glueing onto the wings wrapped newspaper painted in green, following the colour palette of the moth’s mask.
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(Below are some videos regarding the Moth costume! Feel free to watch them to see it in action!!)
The Trees
The trees’ costumes were the most tedious to make, mostly because the only way to make the branches and roots for the arms and feet respectively had to be done by wrapping newspaper on newspaper with tape on our arms and legs so they would be moulded to fit our trees’ legs and arms. We also had to make them actually look like roots and branches, which was quite a pain to do, having to do many extensions of the moulded base. After that, we had to paint it with black and brown paint, which was also a slight issue given that we were slowly (BUT PAINFULLY) running out of paint :( The end product was satisfying though, they looked cool and realistic enough for our trees to look like trees. With feedback that we were not "tree-like" enough due to the lack of leaves, we added flower crowns too (we didn't have time to make leaves... haha)! What an interesting take on a tree costume, am I right?
