This costume was SUCH a labor of love. I first saw TBOL in theatres the night it came out and immediately fell in love with the story, the art, the characters, everything! I knew I had to put my hands into a La Muerte cosplay. The following weeks I began a 2 month journey to recreate this stunning character and bring her to life.

The hat is 3 straw hats pulled apart and glued together and then sandwiched between two pieces of stiff cardboard and covered in red fabric. The top piece is a hollow styrofoam half sphere where I then poked in the ferns and ostrich feathers. Every single marigold seen in this costume was hand made by me. There are over 200 individual flowers made from orange and yellow tissue paper in order to keep with the Dia de Los Muertos tradition of creating them every year. The candles are all made of model magic with tissue paper flames and glues onto the dress and hat. The hemline of the dress has small bells sewn into it so that I jingle when I walk.

The wig is four different crafted together. I first took all the weft out of the three wigs and created strips of thick cotton batting. The strips were each glued to the back of the first black wig and weft by weft, they were glued down the strips. It took a lot of patience and hot glue pain tolerance, but it was finished and I loved the outcome.

The makeup took about an hour and half each day to apply, in order to get all the details in there. The white is basic white face paint mixed with a glittery glow in the dark paint (paste?) and was generously applied before I went it for the other colored details.

This costume was worn for it's first run at Phoenix FanFest 2014 and then again at Phoenix Comicon 2015 after undergoing some minor upgrades. She will be featured in a cosplay calendar, and has been shot by multiple photographers and videographers. As of right now, she is retired until I decide to completely remake her form scratach to improve mobility and the weight of the hat.