I have been begging to do a Dark Crystal Halloween for YEARS. I made a Skeksis costume in ’99, before I started spending way too much time on costumes, but I knew I could do it much better now. Amber always told me it would be too complicated and the boys wouldn’t be able to walk around with their faces completely covered, so we pushed it off until “eventually”.
Since Amber got her Wizard of Oz Halloween she had been begging for last year, she finally agreed to let me do The Dark Crystal. I knew I had to start early if I was going to make 5 (or 6) costumes and give them the detail they deserved. Not to mention how much crap I would get if I begged to do it for years, and then only half-assed it.
It was decided that Amber would be Aughra, I would be a Mystic, Ezra would be a Skeksis, Bass would be a Garthim, Dae would be Jen the Gelfling, and of course Payge would be the Crystal (since she’s mostly covered in crystals anyway)
I started in February(!), modeling a Skeksis skull in Sculptris and 3D printing it. I actually remembered to take a few pictures along the way, so I could document the build process.
But then I got lazy and only worked on it for an hour or so every couple of months.
Starting in August I realized I needed to hunker down and spend every free minute working on the costumes. And, as I have done for the last several years, I took the week before Halloween off so I could finish the costumes.
We went to Clarkdale again this year, because they shut down the streets, which made it much easier to get around with our limited vision. We definitely could not have handled the crowd in Uptown Sedona.
We decided to enter the costume contest, even though it would eat up a good portion of the trick-or-treating time. We told the boys we would buy them close-out candy the next day to make up for it. I was hesitant to enter, based on previous years’ failures, but I felt like this year’s costumes were far superior to previous years.
The contest was divided up into age categories, so each of the boys was in a separate category, with Ezra in the adult category with me. Each group walked around in a big loop past the crowd and judges over and over until they made their decision. Daemon (whose costume was arguably the worst of our group) won second place, behind a little Edward Scissorhands. Then Bass went up. They called third, second, first. No Bass. First place was a cardboard box with a plastic table cloth and a kid’s head sticking out… Everyone in the crowd was telling us we got robbed. Finally it was Ezra and I’s turn. As we went around the circle, people in the crowd kept saying “You guys are awesome! You’re so going to win! You’re totally baller! (apparently that’s a thing kids say these days)” But guess what? 3,2,1 NOTHING. People in the crowd said they couldn’t believe it. But the boys took it all in stride. They said that since Dae won his category, maybe the judges wanted to be fair and not have our family win every category.
After the contest we went trick-or-treating. Most of the houses had already run out of candy, since the contest made us so late. But at every one the boys hit, they got extra handfuls of candy because the people thought their costumes were so cool.
We got stopped every few feet with people wanting to take pictures with us. And the number of people who actually recognized what we were was amazing. The only year that was even close was Doctor Who.
Over all, this was the best year yet. I wonder how we will top it next year?
