Ok, here's my costume for this year. An undead cowboy, which I like to call Deadeye.
A cowboy costume is an idea I have wanted to do for a while. Of course, some kinda zombie version with blood is a natural direction for it to take.
Accord to the legends... this outlaw didn't get the nickname Deadeye by being a sharp shooter. After mistakenly bringing a bull whip to a gun duel, he was shot dead, and a buzzard plucked out his eye.
And yes, we got SNOW in October. Not a typical setting for a cowboy. Desert sands, maybe. Snowflakes, not so much,
To talk details... A costume store hat, with a steer skull magnet attached (that magnet was a souvenir for a road trip I took down south). The ugly mug is a face-mask from Trick Or Treat studios. I put my mom and her sewing machine to work (as is tradition) to make the skull bandana. Fake leather vest from the costume shop, and Goodwill shirt that I "shot" with a lighter and red latex paint. My winter leather gloves and a whip from the costume shop as well.
I chose a whip accessory for a couple reasons... first, I didn't really like any of the costume store six-shooters. They all look totally fake (which I understand, it's for the safety of those who carry them, so people know they are fake). And secondly, I thought the whip make for a funny back story. A cowboy that tried to go against a gun with a whip. No wonder his chest and face is full of holes.
Since I correctly predicted that my feet would not be photographed much, I didn't bother with real cowboy boots. But I used a pair of brown boots I had and attached some custom spurs.
Let me tell you, spurs do not really make it easy to walk down stairs or to operate gas/brake pedals in the car!
And although it's not really my style to wear large belt buckles, I hope to find something to do with this cool metal buckle, as it was actually the most costly single piece of the costume.
And of course, another tradition is to do a carving that matches my costume. I think you'd agree, this is a pretty clear match.