Tim Burton's Corpse Bride Costume

I felt that by creating this Corpse Bride costume, I could do the character and director justice. Corpse Bride has always been one of my favorite movies.

Costume making is a huge part of my life, so when I began making this Corpse Bride costume in April, I knew it would be wonderful. I first started making the costume by buying a wedding dress. Don’t worry, I didn’t use the dress. I cut the dress up into fabric squares and reused the fabric to make the sweetheart top. Then I used what little fabric was left for the gloves, so that there would be fluidity throughout the costume.

To make the color of the dead, I dipped the skirt (which was made of a large sheet of repurposed fabric), the top, the gloves, the shoes, and the veil in the blue dye for 10 minutes. The dye made the fabric a ghostly blue. After this, I laid out the skirt, top, and veil in my garage for spray paint. I used a mix of dark blue, teal, light blue, gray, and white, to create the decaying ombre effect on the edges of the fabric.

I then got a trim from Joanne fabrics, and painted the flowery trim to look the same color as the decay. I cut small holes and put black spray paint around the holes, near the edges of each peice. I then created a sculpt, mold, and cast of the bone rib cage. I painted it to look realistic with acrylic paint from A.C. Moore and attached the piece to the top with hot glue.

This Corpse Bride costume was extremely fun to make and wear!

The makeup takes 6 hours to apply. The layers of Ben Nye face makeup consist of white, then blue on the outerlayers. The eyeshadow is black and dark blue. I defined my collarbones and cheekbones with a blue eyeshadow. The bones on my arm and leg are hand sculpted and painted. I applied them to my leg with a medical grade prosthetic glue. This part made me extremely nervous and anxious since the bones kept falling off, but I got them to stay eventually.

Eight months of my life have been dedicated to recreating this character, and I am glad to say it finally paid off. I entered this Corpse Bride costume in the Eastern Championship of Cosplay 2015 at Comiccon in New York this year, and out of over 200 people, I was chosen to compete along with 32 other contestants. I am the youngest competitor there, and I am planning on winning.

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