So I’ve been a homestuck cosplayer for a little while, and spent some time around other homestuck cosplayers. Now I love trolls and I love troll cosplayers, but one of my pet peeves is how their makeup just seems to get EVERYWHERE. At Soycon 2011, after only a few hours of being at the meetup, I already had gray makeup all over my skirt AND I WAS COSPLAYING ROSE. Not Grimdark Rose. Just Rose. And I’m not blaming anybody. That’s just what happens when you put makeup on your arms and hands, and it’s 95 degrees outside. Or any degrees outside at all. It gets places. The same thing happened to anyone who came in contact with me this past halloween when I was cosplaying as Marceline from Adventure Time. (I have worn stiletto boots for cosplay, I have shoved contacts in my eyes for cosplay, and I have cosplayed as Suigintou from Rozen Maiden on an 85 degree day and believe me when I say being gray from the nipples up is the most uncomfortable thing I have ever done for cosplay. It just feels GROSS.)

So I finally figured out an alternative that I will be using for Acen 2011 as I attend as Vriska Serket, and I hope it’ll catch on.

The following is a tutorial I found from a Doctor Who Weeping Angel cosplayer, copied word for word. It’s not specifically for troll cosplay, but it’s the same concept and it’ll work for basically any of the trolls except Feferi. (as feferi wears a tank top and you can’t really cover this up with a tank top) You can see a little bit of minor seamage up close, but that’s a small price to pay for the nastiness it saves you from. So here it is! An alternative for troll cosplayers that want to hug people, touch things, pick things up, ride in someone’s car without getting makeup all over their seats, and just generally be not repulsive.

~

“Arms, neck, feet
Materials: Opaque tights, acrylic paint/fabric-medium, nail polish, artificial nails, toe-socks, thrift-store sandals

I know I don’t have any makeup skills, so I wanted some sort of gloves for the arms. I bought two different pairs of gloves before giving up and making my own.

First, I took a pair of ladies’ opaque tights and cut out the crotch. This became the neck-hole. I pulled them on, one arm down each sleeve, then used pins to mark the divisions between my fingers.”

“I cut along the pins, then sewed the fingers together by hand using a whipstitch. After that, I took a little tuck in the wrist area of the gloves to smooth out some wrinkles.”

“As soon as you pull the gloves on after this, dab some nail polish along the seams - this will stabilize them and prevent the tights from running. Then turn the gloves inside-out so that the seams are on the inside (at this point, the right glove will become the left glove and vice-versa).

To increase the illusion of fingers, I glued artificial nails to the gloves. You have to do this while the gloves are on to get the correct placement - to prevent the glue from sticking to you, rub some oil or lotion into your fingertips/nails before you pull the gloves on.

Paint the gloves while you are wearing them and let them
dry on you, otherwise they will shrink. I used the same old acrylic paint/fabric medium mix. Before painting the gloves, I gave the nails several coats of silver nailpolish so that they wouldn’t show pink if the paint scratched.

They look really freaky when you aren’t wearing them.”

“But once on, the illusion is very convincing.”