Take it from an expert in disguise – costumes don’t have to be intimidating to blow people’s minds.
A Florida-based artist and model named Alison Tabitha has appeared 1.1 million followers on Instagramand nearly 400,000 YouTube subscribers, for her remarkable transformation into characters like Captain Jack Sparrow, Wonder Woman and Lydia Deetz from the series Beetlejuice.
Her costumes look so real that she has often been accused of faking them.
But she maintains that it’s a self-taught “one woman show.”
“I don’t put filters on my photos,” Tabitha told The Post. “When I first started this a few years ago, and my photos went viral, people were saying, ‘Oh, it’s just Photoshop.’ People have told me I have a team of stylists. It’s so much fun.”
skeptics She can go to her medical youtube channel, which contains step-by-step tutorials.
“I wear it in public, so makeup and costumes have to be convincing. Tabitha, who declined to say her age, said:
Now she’s become famous at cosplay conventions, and she’s got social media sponsorships from companies like Disney, Netflix, Lionsgate, and HBO Max. She even received offers from Hollywood makeup artists to shade them on set.
But surprisingly, Tabitha, who does everything from makeup, sew her own costumes, build fashion collections, and design costumes, fell into the “hobby” by accident.
Captain Jack Sparrow
As a child, she was homeschooled and her parents worked to foster her love of art. Her first cosplay models were Barbie dolls. I would cut their hair and paint their faces. I started making Joker dolls and sold them on eBay and was making money when I was 14. “
As a teenager, Tabitha, whom her mother taught her to sew, was Captain Jack Sparrow for Halloween. “My mom was like, ‘Mature guy, that’s an interesting choice.’ It was the first outfit I worked so hard on.”
The Pirates of the Caribbean fanatic continued to take on bigger challenges with her outfit, and in 2014, she posted a picture of herself as the stumbler on the big screen on Facebook. Then someone shared it on Tumblr. “It spread quickly and people started asking if I had a costume page. I was like, ‘What is a cosplay page?’ I’ve always had a hard time with Halloween, but I didn’t know anything about cosplay per se. I fell for it.”
captain America
As an artist who can draw, sew, and sculpt, she enjoys cosplay as a unique, multifaceted art form. Her commercial tools are simple: craft foam, sundae sticks, a glue gun, drugstore cosmetics, and plenty of imagination.
“I love to dress up on a budget and show people how they can do it in achievable ways,” Tabitha said of her community, where people regularly spend thousands of dollars on clothes. “I use Eyeshadow ELF To define my face in beige brown. I think I use that more than anything else. It costs $2. ”
But now, when it comes to Halloween, Tabbitha enjoys being simple. “Maybe I will be a generic vampire. I wear costumes all year round, so for Halloween, I like to go back to basics.”
For trick-or-treaters looking to make a Tabbitha-level splash, here’s how she pulls off her most detailed – and charming – look.
amazing woman
Johnny Depp’s films are an endless source of inspiration for Tabitha. “He’s one of my favorite actors and he’s a good example of someone who really turns into characters,” she said, adding that she’s looking for Mad Hatter and Sweeney Todd who are ready to shoot.
to transform itself into Captain Jack SparrowShe relied on a few basic tools—a glue gun, wigs, craft paint—and one weird one: a pile of her own hair clippings.
“I was a cranky kid. I cut my hair myself, sometimes keeping it. I used some synthetic hair too. As disgusting as that sounds, my real hair is in a Jack Sparrow wig.” To make his shiny hair, she swirled real and fake locks in her hands with some glue, painted them and tied them to a wig she had loosened before. I dyed a white puffed-sleeved shirt with a diluted watery brown paint to make it look worn and sloppy. Then she added accessories, including a jacket, leather belt, and hair beads, and beautified her face to mimic Depp’s sculpted bone structure.
Lydia Dietz from Beetlejuice“
Tabitha finished off the look with her version of Depp’s intense stare. Expression is just as important as selling the character. It’s 10 to 20 percent of looks, and the rest is makeup.”
“Winona [Ryder] She is one of the actresses that I naturally look like. “I have a lot of Natalie Portman too,” she said.
Tabitha calls “Beetlejuice” a classic, but she admits she loves Ryder more than the movie. To create the theme, I used the . file Red lace dress From a Halloween costume site and looked at a wig store she’s been building since she was younger. “Before I did cosplay, I would collect wigs and buy them for sale after Halloween. That was $10.”
She tore her black headdress into a “messy pineapple” and used makeup to accentuate her bone structure and give her dark red circles under her eyes. But she credits the deal. “I think a well-designed wig is more subtle than makeup.”
Gal Gadot’s version of Wonder Woman comes with easy hair and makeup, but her cropped look is another story. This superhero’s armor was labor-intensive, and it took Tabbitha two full weeks to build.
Magic from X-Men“
The chest and arm straps are made from TreeFLX, a moldable thermoplastic material. “It comes in sheets. You can heat it with a heat gun and you can shape the material,” said Tabitha, who shaped a dress and later modified it to fit her body. “I made the details, cut the sponge, glued it to the base and then painted it,” she said.
The gender change in Tabbitha’s outfit came courtesy of a professionally made outfit, full of padding, wig and makeup. “Sometimes a company sends me a costume, so I thought it would be fun to change it,” she said.
The rest of the process was about covering up her feminine facial features. “When I dress as a person, I don’t need to put on a lot of makeup. My features are often erased and then my facial features are outlined to make them look stronger. I also wear fake eyebrows.”
Tabitha admits that she makes a very handsome man.
“I don’t have a boyfriend right now and sometimes I look in the mirror and I’ll say, ‘Why can’t I find a man like the one in the mirror?'” she said with a laugh. ”
Tabitha confesses to the shape-shifting blue killer woman – who was Played by Jennifer Lawrence and Rebecca Romijn – “Probably one of the most dramatic looks.” She started with a simple blue suit, but gave it some interior architecture by gluing the breast rack into the fabric. Then she covered her face with blue makeup from Mehron: a cosmetics company used by special effects artists.
Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad“
Then she applied layers of her face paint to give it some texture. “For the scales, I use blue lace or mesh netting and apply the bouffant shirt paint to the mesh. I let it dry and applied it directly to my face.”
For the finishing touch, she inserted yellow lenses in her eyes. Lucky for her, she doesn’t have sensitive peepers. “I can rub my eyeballs. It’s not a problem.”
“I sewed it all from scratch,” Tabitha said of the red bust dress, adding that she usually shops at JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts, looking for discounts and using coupons. She said that the entire look — which was based on Margot Robbie’s portrayal of the Joker’s former unscathed flame — was only in the making for three days. “I like to work fast.”
The artist has also drawn Quinn’s tattoo using eyeliner. I used a blonde lace front wig, cut it from the back, and then used a hot glue gun to secure the red and black strips. For the final dramatic image, I worked with photographer David Love. “Sometimes I build a set myself or find a site. Or sometimes I work with David, who is a composite artist. He will ride me into an element.”
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