The screaming skull sculpted in latex on this shield is your first hint that this is a seriously bad man. Thematic weaponry and shields are a great way to convey the agenda of your character to the world.
A homemade leather hood adds armor points and a certain sinister attitude. The crushed brown velvet cape adds some movement and flow. If you don’t want to buy them, capes are a great beginner sewing project.
Armor! You can make chain mail fairly easily if you have an abundance of patience. We bought this set. However, Jim made the brigandine himself, by making a black leather vest and then riveting blank dog tags on the inside.
Wow, when you get down to them, these are just plain black jeans and a black period-style shirt. Shirts can be found online or look for a pattern and make your own.
Awaken the Dead
Bringing an undead character to life can be an involved process. You have to consider the theme of the undead creature you are creating as well as the personality of the individual whose mind the necromancy now enslaves. Think carefully about what you want to convey to other players about the undead you are portraying. Is the creature hideous? Steeped in fear? Beautiful and nearly still as they were in life?
Once you've pinned down what you want to try to create, look for or design pieces which evoke that theme. If an undead creature is supposed to be a powerful warrior, then heavy arms and armor will be the order of the day. For the undead who rely on their powers over the mind, more elegant garments are in demand. For the freshly-risen look, torn and stained clothing goes a long way to showing their state.
Makeup
Makeup is a powerful weapon in your arsenal when creating undead characterizations, and there are many schools of though on how best to create that enduring-dead look. Most are founded on the principle of changing the skin tone and altering the facial structure.
For an undead creature whose body is mostly intact, the best way of portraying deadness is by draining the blood color from the character. This can be a subtle or a drastic alteration, but usually needs to be at least enough so that something is apparently not right as opposed to simply looking like your makeup artist just chose the wrong foundation. For Alison's banshee, an etherial undead, we took the color completely out of her skin. We put Jim's death knight in an early state of decay, his body forever trapped with mottled, bruised, and sunken skin. If we had wanted a later stage, we could have applied a few layers of latex and peeled them back, coloring under them and around the fringes with greys to convey decay, or even gone as far as to include cooked rice to simulate maggots. For completely skeletal faces, masks or prosthetics are usually required to get a realistic look.
Perhaps even more important than skin tone to undead creatures is facial structure. Shading a character's face to look sunken or bloated takes some practice, but can create some stunning results. Removal of features through prosthetics or makeup can also be quite powerful for creating an alien and unsettling look. Here we removed the banshee's eyes and replaced them with bleeding sockets. Nothing says "eternal torment" like clawing out your own eyes.
Special thanks to our models, Jim Butcher and Alison Flannery.
How to create a Banshee costume with a $20 budget.
1. Buy a $15 wedding dress from thrift store.
2. Buy a $3 can of black spray paint. Apply spray paint artistically to dress. Tear and fray lace.
3. Buy a $2 makeup kit on clearance after Halloween, and have fun with it.
Masks
Masks are the fastest way to dramatically change the way that a person is perceived. They make a great addition to a Heroic event.
If you are considering wearing a mask as part of your character’s ensemble, make sure that you can tolerate wearing it for long periods of time. An ideal mask for long term wear is one that you can easily see out of, breathe comfortably in, and that you don’t have to remove in order to drink anything.
