Okay, so I'm not really a costume designer for theater. I don't think I would ever want to design costumes as a career. Maybe if I specialized in armor or something, that would be cool. But as for myself, I enjoy designing costumes for the Renaissance Faire and for Halloween and other such things. I thought maybe I would post pictures of what I've done for others to see. So here are some things I've done.
Tartuffe Costume Project
I took a mandatory class at school called Computer Aided Design for the Theater, or something like that. For our final project, we had to partner up and design scenery and costumes for Moliere's Tartuffe.
My partner designed the set and I did the costumes. Our concept was to combine modern day styles with 16th century styles. We had to used the computer to complete the renderings. For those of you who paint in real life and have tried using a computer to do it, you know that it's like painting with your toes. Underwater. With sharks attacking you. With machine guns. And I had a very short deadline. These are the renderings I came up with. I am not a huge fan of the renderings in general, but I kind of like the ideas I came up with. So here they are with commentary:
Cleante has a tweed suit. He's probably the most down-to-earth character in the whole play, besides Dorine. But she's too sassy to wear tweed.
Essentially, Dorine is the Arlecchino, or "The Crafty/Wise Servant", of the play. Hence the black and white patchwork apron. I modeled her after a combination of the basic 16th century peasant outfit and today's Molly Maid uniform.
He's GREEN with jealousy at Tartuffe... Get it!? Notice the V-neck sweater.
At some point I decided that Mariane is way more stylish than the rest of the characters. It makes more sense that she and pretty boy Valere would be together that way I guess. I put her in red because she is a passionate teenager.
Ah, Valere. This is my favorite rendering. He's pretending to be macho only to offset his major pretty boy-ness. His Converse All-Stars are my crowning achievement. I love his fitted Abercrombie-esque white t-shirt too.
I based Elmire a little on Bree Van De Kamp from Desparate Housewives. If there was ever a desparate housewife, Elmire is it.
How hot is a period-cut pin stripe suit? Orgon is pretending to be humble and pious, but you know he loves looking good.
I modeled Madame Pernelle after Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond. I gave her a floor-length Marie Barone blouse with an under skirt. It was great fun saying to the woman at the fabric store: "I need old lady blouse fabric."
For my presentation, I even bought a big fake orange flower in addition to my swatch. It would go on the blouse.
He is slightly based on period clergy costume, and slightly on Jim Bakker. Bakker used to wear those ties with gaudy pictures of Jesus on them. It just goes to show you that all the embezzled money in the world can't buy good taste.
I did this one at 2am. Did I mention that this project took a few years off my life?
But as Dick Solomon would say "Yeah, but that's off the end of your life, and those years are crappy anyway."
Costume renderings I did for Cable's costume. He didn't know if he wanted to get brown leather armor or black leather armor, so I painted this so he could compare. We have yet to make the costume though, but when we do, I'll post pictures of it.
