Costumes: Bring Your Own

As the title suggests, for characters in ordinary-looking clothes, describe the style of clothing and most amateur actors can bring clothes that they already own. This is how most of the costumes worked for Slim. My friend Kalee brought her own cheerleader uniform. My friend Angel gave us the use of a gorgeous, sparkly dress. From my own clothing collection came Slim's hat, a trench coat, and a tuxedo.

My Mom was responsible for crafting Slim's "body". It may look like a simple pillow down his shirt, but it was more complex than that. The inside shell was actually an old T-shirt. Pinned to the T-shirt was a large pillowcase stuffed with fiber fill that was shaped to resemble a big gut and man boobs. Attached to the sides of the T-shirt were two hand towels stuffed with fiber fill. These were Slim's "love handles". On the back of the shirt were two hand towels stuffed with fiber fill to represent Slim's big fanny. The next step was to find clothing large enough to fit Slim's new frame. For all of this, we browsed the local Goodwill Store. We found a very large polo shirt with arms that I needed to keep pulling up. For Slim's formal attire, we found a massive dress shirt with very short sleeves and a great big sport coat. Slim's tie was the ugliest I could find.

For the nun costumes, I asked my friend Annette to be the costume designer. I chose her because she had a good fashion sense, knew how to sew, and had a sewing machine! She figured out how to take large sheets of thin, black material and to create simple black dresses. Some had sleeves and others did not. Extra material became belts and/or holsters. For the veils, we used pieces of white cardboard with a safety pin. The safety pin allowed the veil to be resized for each actor. Wilhelm's costume was actually a grim reaper halloween costume, while Sudden's costume was a black graduation gown.

My first thought for Snarion was a classic maid costume. However, as we searched, the only maid costumes available were naughty adult costumes. It was then that Annette realized that Snarion is kidnapped from her home, so she would not have to wear a work uniform.  For Tubba, Annette found a colorful blanket that worked as a sash for the character.

Overall, the costumes were not difficult to imagine and collect. Once again, when you have no budget, ask your friends for help!