Death Becomes Her Halloween Costume

Create the illusion of seeing through a gaping wound in your body. This is my Halloween Costume for 2008, based on the 1992 movie Death Becomes Her. I am portraying Goldie Hawn's character, who was blasted with a shotgun by Meryl Streep's character in a fit of undead rage.
This movie used new and impressive compositing techniques of the time to create the special effect of a hole through Goldie's body.
What if you could build and wear a special effect like this for a costume? Here's how...

Step 1 Supplies

Gear:
2 x Secondary 7" monitors for a portable DVD unit
2 x Nikon coolpix digital camera with video out cable
2 x 12 volt battery

Sculpture:
clay
plaster of paris
plastic board
Smooth On flex foam, sealer and realease agent
elastic
Velcro
Acrylic paint
Acrylic gloss medium

Outfit:
"Vampire dress"
Fake fur remnant
long gloves
scissors

Comments

[Nelyan]

There's a link missing for flex foam in the last paragraph in step 2, btw. Great tutorial. If only I had enough money for two monitors...

[iminthebathroom]

Very cool, soooo jealous! I'll try a variation for next year!  Awesome

[flixs]

nice job, I was creating exactly same effect using 14" pc monitor and webcam , your setup and mine basicly same thing.. nice to see other people have twisted ideas like i do.. lol

[esben2k]

Very nice

[Jayefuu]

Awesome. 5*

[natataka]

bravo...very original and executed well.

[orksecurity]

The single thing that impresses me most is that you seem to have the focal length, and alignment,  of the camera set about right to match normal vision from a reasonable distance. I know, you worked at finding the right point from which to shoot the demo video... but still, it's a pretty darned good effect. Pity you couldn't have gotten it to match colors/brightness a bit more closely, but that Really Tough given different lighting conditions.

Works a heck of a lot better than I would have expected. Well Done.

[Photographer London]

 full respect that is a serious amount of work to put into a costume!

[bowmaster]

Totally awesome! It's like a invisibility cloak for only part of your body.

[Armaggedon]

Cool!

[Angeleyes997]

That is the coolest costume I have ever seen!

[sponges]

This is pretty incredible. Well done. just, well done. Totally resourceful and ingenious. Anyway, What's the battery life on the electronics like?

[nicemag]

I wore it for about 5 hours until the camera battery died. The 12 volt was still going strong.

[sponges]

impressive!

[Re-design]

Way cool!

[Bartboy]

Like the invisible car in james bond!

[nicemag]

ha! Yes I based this idea on an old article in Wired suggesting a technique for practical invisibility.

[Bartboy]

well, it works! a bit pricey though....

[ax89]

Really good and wearable too! Awesome!

[Nabil]

I was waiting for this one!! great work!!

[fungus amungus]

I love it! Another great costume from you. Fantastic.

[mysterygirl154]

This is like the best costume ever! What did people think of it?

[jakebaldwin]

wow... this is an awesome costume. nice job! Are you in the movie industry or something?

[jessyratfink]

This is one of the most original costumes I've seen so far this year. :D