Zombie Queen
Inspiration
The idea for this original costume came as many do - it popped into my head out of nowhere, way too late for me to do anything about it. I thought of the idea just before halloween, 2012. I planned to participate in the Ottawa Zombie Walk for the first time with a friend. I threw something together and went instead as a Zombie princess.
I had a great time and wanted to do it again. Unwisely, the only place I kept that the design for the Zombie Queen was in my head, until about mid-2013 while playing with shiny new brush pen. As fall approached, I knew that the Zombie Queen deserved to come to life.
Production
I dug out that idea and began production. The skirt is made from approximately 140 extra large garbage bags, a 10' x 12' tarp, some scrap jersey, and a cheap black ruffled skirt from my local Salvation Army.
I meticulously cut holes in the otherwise perfectly acceptable skirt and tied pieces of garbage bag into it in increasing sizes, to match my sketch. The first few rows took about 3 garbage bags of pieces. The very bottom ones took about 40.
I also made a bustle via the same principle that attached on top of the skirt in order to make it pouffier in the back.
The crown was made from a dollar store wastepaper basket, papier mache'd with duct tape, construction foam, and heavily painted with acrylic paint. I used scraps from my magic chest of craft supplies and my glow in the dark tape as accents.
The staff, which was a late addition, was made with a dowel and leftover pieces from all of the above. I lucked out and found a $10 bag of halloween decoration bones at Wal-Mart, and used those as accents.
The white wig is one I've had for a while, I bought it on a whim in Montreal. The corset, gloves and top are all clothes that I wear regularly.
Application
I wanted the makeup for the zombie walk itself to be more dead-looking than I typically do. I went for extreme white and black, to help the costume details stand out more. My dollar store false eyelashes were so long that when they caught the wind, theyseriously caught the wind. I got eye strain from wearing them. It takes a total of 3 hours to get the costume & makeup on. 2 hours for makeup and 1 hour for clothes/wig.
As I did later photo shoots, I returned to skin-tone for the costume as I found it more flattering/dynamic, as it provided nice contrast with the stark details in the costume itself.
This is the Zombie Queen sketch from early 2014. Photos courtesy of Tooma Productions, Marc Dhavernas & Paul Dickie.
Public appearances
Photo credit to the following photographers who took her picture at the Zombie Walk 2013:
- Alain Tremblay
- Austin Cooke
- Chris Macpherson
- Christophe Ledent
- Clyde Brendon Drodge
- Henahadu
- HLX
- Jon Wenzel
- Michael Girard
- Michael Monette
- Richard Dufault
- Tedford Chan
- TOOMA Productions/Brian Lalande
- Zombieinfo.com
I was also overjoyed with the photos captured by Brian Lalande of TOOMA Productions.
Thanks to the Camera Club of Ottawa for having me as their model! Photo credit to the following photographers:
- Marc Dhavernas
- Paul Dickie
The Zombie Queen also made an appearance at the 2015 Montreal ComicCon.
