Very Easy Things You Can Do To Improve Your Homestuck Cosplay
If you are grey, SEAL YOUR PAINT. Itâs just polite. For creme paints like Ben Nye and for water-activated paints mixed with a medium like Ben Nye Liquiset, youâll need a powder. If you havenât got Neutral Set or whatever, you can use baby powder for this.
Wear eye makeup. This goes for everyone regardless of gender or species but is especially important for trolls, where your human flesh will be visible around your eyes and look awful. What exactly you want to do in terms of colours depends on your character, but trolls should use an eyeliner to fill in between the lashes, and cover both lower and upper waterlines using an eye pencil (black, white, grey - depends on taste/character).
Please donât use jet black lipstick for male trolls, especially if youâre female-bodied. But do fill in your lips with a darker grey.
It is worth investing in - 1) matte black eyeshadow; 2) matte white eyeshadow; 3) matte eyeshadow in your trollsâs blood colour. Use 1) and 2) for contouring and filling in features (for instance, mixing black eyeshadow with the paint on your lips makes a nice dark grey for male trolls) and 3) for realistic blood colour accents. (You may have to hunt for a while for the odder colours - my tip is that the company Saffron makes a matte cerulean that is PERFECT for Vriska. Also, using a dark red on Aradia/Damara/Handmaid works fine, but donât bother using bright red for Karkat/Kankri/Sufferer - it invariably looks like human skin showing through.)
For Dental Distortions or other types of fake teeth, trim the gums with scissors so that the teeth fit comfortably inside your mouth and arenât ridiculously gummy everywhere. (Iâm told Dental Distortions will dye the gums grey for you, if you ask.)
For humans, especially crossplayers, do invest in getting a good BB cream - it evens out your skin tone without looking like foundation. (EDIT: thewillowbends pointed out to me that this is bad advice for those with dark skin, and recommends several tinted moisturiser brands as an alternative.)
It is better not to do freckles than to draw on about six cartoon black dots on your face. If you want freckles, please look at reference pictures of how they work in real life and aim to copy that. (For human freckles, a light brown eye pencil - for troll freckles, please use a slightly darker shade of grey.) BLOOD COLOURED FRECKLES LOOK LIKE ZITS.
If youâre wearing contacts, please please PLEASE donât get the flat coloured ones (the exception being if you want a white-out lens, either one with a peephole or a white-out mesh). Monochrome eyes are one of those things that look good in drawings but absolutely unnerving on people. Aim to get ones with a blended colour. Look at the stock in places like Pinky Paradise and UNIQSO.
IF IN DOUBT AS TO WHETHER YOU CAN WEAR THEM/KEEP THEM CLEAN/ETC., DONâT WEAR CONTACTS AT ALL. ITâS YOUR EYES, ITâS NOT WORTH IT. And do your research. Donât just stick them in your eyes straight from the bottle unless you enjoy pain. Donât wash them under the tap. Donât take ANY risks here. Itâs your eyeballs. You only get two and you canât replace them if they break.
If youâre wearing armsocks, donât forget to attach nails.
If not, do paint your own nails.
If you want pointy ears, itâs almost always best to go for more understated pointy ears (since the trolls in comic are drawn without ears, huge ears mess up the silhouette). The ones sold as âtroll earsâ on sites are, you know, for Tolkienian trolls. I HAVE seen really cool cosplay done with them but please use your best judgement here and donât assume that because it has âtrollâ in the name it will look good on every single Homestuck troll.
Sand your horns and weapons! Seriously, do it!
Consider covering your paper mache props with a thin layer of your preferred air dry clay. Whatever you do, sand it.
Gesso is your new best friend and you should be using it on everything, especially horns.
Please find a way of putting the horns through your wig rather than just slapping the headband on top, unless you are doing Calliope in troll cosplay.
Please donât paint your symbol free-hand. Use freezer paper. You can also use that method for more complicated designs.
If your clothes are reclaimed charity shop stuff, do wash them first to get rid of that charity shop smell.
If youâre female-bodied and cosplaying a male character, please bind. But DONâT USE COMPRESSION BANDAGES; it is extremely dangerous.
STYLE YOUR WIGS. Most wigs come out of the box requiring at least a trim of the fringe. THIS ESPECIALLY GOES FOR ALL YOU DAVES, I am watching all of you.
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