White Walker Costume from Game of Thrones

Being a big fan of game of thrones I was feeling pretty ambitious and wanted to pull off being a White Walker this Halloween. I thought the timing was perfect since at the end of the last season it showed how scary and powerful the white walkers are leaving everyone anxious for the next season since “Winter is Finally Here” Also after browsing it seemed like this was a very uncommon costume as well and I definitely was not too impressed with the majority of the amateur White Walker costumes which made me want to pull it off even more

Mi idea was to make this costume very detailed but also very practical, easy to get into, comfortable, not having to do a lot of makeup prep, etc… For the body/skin I used a morph suit then using fabric paint I made it have the look of an iced, wintery zombie. My favorite part of the project was making the prosthetic mask and figuring out how to achieve the eerie blue glowing eyes while still being able to see well. I started with a basic mummy prosthetic mask then used liquid latex to build up and emphasize the areas where I felt it was lacking, around the eyes and cheek bones. Then I painted it making the deep cracked wrinkles pop and shadowing to make my face look much more sunken in. The more difficult part of this costume was after many trial and errors finally getting the eyes to have a consistent blue glow while still having good visibility. To do this I used two clear plastic dividers from my old tackle box and cut them into the shape I needed to lay a little offset from the bottom of the eye sockets to give room for the light to aluminate the whole area of the eye. When I got the shape dialed in I then wet sanded the lens to be very translucent so the light would spread throughout the whole lens opposed to wherever I decided to locate the blue LED. This worked great and made the glow much more even. I still knew this would make it difficult to see having my eyes encased in a blue light box so I got a pair of blue tanning bed goggles. With these I popped the dark lens out, and then used my dremel tools to cut out the top portion of the goggles out giving me the height I needed to sit flush in the hole I drilled out in the lens. The remainder of the goggle sat close around my eye creating a shield from the bright LEDs. When I was happy I then used latex to adhere the goggles to the lens and the lens into the eye socket. I found a location for the two LEDs on the backside of the lens for best glow I then again using latex held the LEDs in place and the wires to travel along the backside of the mask. I used multiple layers of latex on the wires so they would feel natural with the same texture as the rest of the mask. After I had all this done it was time for final touchup on the paint and makeup along with applying an adhesive to the creases around the nostrils, brow line, and upper cheek bone so I could build up a frozen look using fake Ice crystals then topping them with a frosty powder. Now it was time to work on the wig. The cheapest white wig I could find was unfortunately a very fashionable one with side bangs and curls at the bottom for women. I had to do quite a bit of work to achieve the look I had in mind starting with buzzing off all the strands in the front creating a big forehead area. I then applied latex to all the short buzzed hair laying it down flat while also creating a base layer for a natural looking forehead. Then I painted it using the same colors and techniques as the mask. Next step was to make the rest of the hair not so “pretty”. I sprayed a lot of hair detangler so I could finally get a brush to run through it. I got the hair to straighten out quite a bit using a comb caked in glow in the dark cream makeup and extra stiff hairspray. Being happy with how everything turned out it was now time to make the accessories and props. I bought a thick grey/white faux fur scarf and leg warmers. I connected the scarf in the back loosely using some extra tire chain I had in the garage so the scarf would spread out over my shoulders giving it the Viking look. My coworker generously gave me a lot of scrap pleather materials, fake fur, and sheep skin she had so I could construct the arm cuffs, skirt, and wrap the leg warmers in leather straps to achieve the look I had pictured. For the skirt I cut out a lot of tattered strips from the different materials I had, and then stitched them around the sheep skin/leather band I made to wrap around my waist. The arm cuffs I cut out of a fake leather material bordered them with the sheep skin then laced them to wrap comfortably around my arms. After I finished all the accessories I winterized them by lightly brushing over them with white fabric paint. For my prop I used my old fishing spear I made when I was young and stuck a severed head on top. Then I screwed bolts in random locations so I could loosely hang the rest of the chain I had giving it an eerie look along with the scary clanging chain noise when I walked around. I came across a “White Walker Winter Ale” logo online which I thought was perfect to print out and tape to my thermos. This also hung from a hook on my spear so my “adult beverages” were conveniently close and always cold.

My Halloween plans were to walk over to the neighbors for their big annual costume party. As soon as I made my entrance there was instantly a roar with gasps and “Oh My God”. The couple holding the party right away came up and gave me the best costume plaque along with a whopping $30 certificate. Oh well I wasn’t concerned about a big prize anyway, my goal was getting into character and really creeping some people out. Mission definitely accomplished by the end of the night there were quite a few ladies who hated me. I often found a dark corner flipped the switch located on my chest to turn my eyes off then waited for perfect opportunities to flip them on and really startle some unfortunate people straying away from the crowd.

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