This costume was made for a Greek Gods group that was planned for Katsucon. The group unfortunately fell apart, but I still finished the costume and wanted to wear it to the con, especially since there is a huge statue of a titan/god in the sand near the Peep Store!!
Athena - Greek Goddess
Debut: Katsucon 2011
Cost of materials: $120
Awards: n/a
I tend to have a really hard time with original designs, because I excel at re-creating, rather than designing, my own costumes. This costume required a lot of staring at Athena statues and illustrations and deciding which elements I wanted to include in the costume itself.
The chiton is blue poly-linen with thin gold trim and gold buttons at the shoulders. I already had the sandals and wig (which is absolutely lovely!) and that's the end of the non-armoured attire!
The spear is made from PVC pipe, cardboard, masking tape, paper mache and gesso. The shield is pink insulation foam mounted on 1/2 inch MDF, with a metal handle and leather arm brace on the underside. After paper mache-ing the foam, I coated the whole thing with gesso and sanded it, then glued on laurel branches cut from craft foam. The Gorgon is a plastic mask with eyes and teeth of craft foam and snakes made from Paperclay. The shoulder pauldron is, again, cardboard, masking tape, paper mache, gesso, and designs of craft foam, and is fastened with vinyl straps that snap together underneath the chiton.
The helmet is my favorite part of the whole costume! I started with a cardboard skeleton for the helmet frame, then built up the face mask, horsehair ridge and back guard with more cardboard. Everything was covered in several layers of masking tape, then several layers of paper mache, then gesso. I sanded the whole helmet smooth except for the horsehair ridge, which was gessoed using a stiff-bristle brush to make it look like strands of horsehair. All props were spray painted gold with Rust-oleum Metallic Gold spray paint and I will never use another gold paint again - it's so amazing!!
Needless to say, I had an awesome time killing that titan on Friday and I got some truly amazing pictures of this costume. I've long been a fan of Athena and she is my favorite Greek Goddess. I also had a great time reprising this costume for our Greek Gods group at Otakon 2011 - it was awesome!
Picture Credits: David Dunn, Mindfall, Soulfire Photography
