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| A Mage and Princess Bubblegum at the 2018 Fantasy Fayre - The Bestiary Photograph taken by Heinz Meier |
I must admit that I was slightly uneasy with my best friend's choice of Princess Bubblegum and Marceline from Adventure Time for our next cosplay event. Apart from the fact that PB is a highly popular choice for cosplay, which means there a possibility that I would be one of two or more and will likely have to suffer through the 'who wore it better' comparisons; I have seen a few Princess Bubblegum cosplays online and at passed events, and though there are some great cosplay for her, I found that some got lost in the pinkness of her character. Either the wig was too light, the skin too dark or the dress, wig and skin the same shade or they looked just a tad too human.
So, it was important for my overly critical brain that my facial features not get lost in a pink smear, and my skin, dress and wig definitely had to compliment, and not detract from, each other. I do wonder why this was such an issue as I had been flexible with my cosplays in the past, particularly with my Dragon Age: Bethany Hawke Cosplay, where I switched the colours of gloves and top because I couldn't find them in the colours of her outfit. I love Adventure Time as much as I love Dragon Age and put as much obsession effort into both, so I guess I just really wanted to do PB's bubblegumminess justice.
I do think I managed to pull the PB look off at AlterEgo's Fantasy Fayre 2018 - The Bestiary Event. By the way, we decided to attempt the Creature Quest this time round and had massive fun trying to complete all the quests, one of which was a larping training quest and that definitely made me realise that I do not have an affinity for violence and will resort to yelling "I'm a pacifist!"into the trainer's face before running him begrudgingly through. So, the Creature Quest comes highly recommended from me for next years Fayre. There definitely needs to be an app version option for this quest though; running around with papers, pens and props got a little much at times.
Here are a few make-up tips I used:
- I found that the face paint was a little too dark for my liking so I coated the pink areas with Nyx Professional Makeup White Glitter Powder to make it a bit lighter, added bonus is that it will give your skin that glittery look of chewing gum. You can buy this product at any Clicks for about R170. I bought mine at the one in Eastgate. You might want to add this to your budget if necessary.
- Fill any gaps in the face paint on your face and body, specially around the eyes with the same shade of pink eyeshadow.
- Powder the tip of your nose with a slightly darker shade of pink eyeshadow. Use the same shade with white eyeshadow as well for your eyes, along with your usual black eyeliner and mascara
- Brush purple eyeshadow or blush over your cheeks.
- Try getting a pink lipstick with a red undertone. Usually, when I wear that particular colour it is pink on my lips, but when I put it on that day, the red tone really popped.
- You may want to get brush your eyebrows with dark pink shade too, mine kind of ended up that way when I applied the face paint.
- Then, you may want to finish off the end result with some setting spray. Just spray sparingly and from a distance, the spray changes the colour of the face paint if it gets too wet from it, and I'm sure you don't that sort of weird chemical reactions happening on your skin.
Budget Breakdown
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| Princess Bubblegum stroking a Unicorn |
Gown
Material (Consists of 5m of Pink Fabric, 5m Pink under-layer Fabric and 1/2m Purple Fabric) - R153.25 in total at Fabric Link.
Tailor - R350 at the Tailor in China Mall/Hillfox.
Crown
Blue Gem - R10 at China Mall/Hillfox.
Alice Bands (pack of six) - R25 at Shoprite.
Head and Make-Up
Superstar Facepaint: Bubblegum - R275 at Facepaint Supplies SA, this includes courier costs.
Pink Wig - R109 Sale Price from soowee Official Store on Aliexpress.
Gimmick
Stick Sweets - R 39. 99 at Taska Sweets/Green Valley Shopping Centre. I gave this out to anyone, kids or adults, who came up to us during the event.
Other
You might want to budget for some Pink Boots; I thought of this too late and had to make do with my pink Sneakers. As well as some craft foam to make your crown, I used some packaging foam to make mine.
So the Grand Total spent for my Princess Bubblegum Cosplay - R962.24; R237.76 less than my R1200 cosplay budget.
Keep a lookout for my next blog the the Cosplaying the Adventure Time: Princess Bubblegum series, Creating the Princess Bubblegum Crown.
