My adventures painting myself green.

I have been getting asked how I managed to get myself green for my Ame-Comi Jade costume a lot, so instead of explaining it over and over again I decided to take the time to do a write up about it.

As soon as I saw the figure I just knew I had to cosplay it. But the main problem I had was how I would get myself green. I had never done anything like that before. After doing some research I kept hearing about this method of body paint called PAX. My good friend Kiwi5Frog (https://www.facebook.com/Kiwi5FrogCosplay) ended up using this method for her Killer Frost costume and I thought she looked really nice. She had nothing but positive feed back on the method and result so I decided I should look into this method. Upon further research, and long talks about it with Kiwi5, I found out PAX is a mixture of Pros Aide (a medical grade prosthetic adhesive) and a water based paint (most commonly acrylic) with a ratio of about 1 to 1. Seems easy enough right? So I decided to give it a shot!

I set off to gather my materials. I went where Kiwi5 had gotten her supplies, the Costume Shoppe (http://thecostumeshop.net/). I like this store but you really have to know what you are looking for since everything is neatly packed away. When I went they were fresh out of pros aide! So after explaining to the owner of the shop what I was wanting to do she recommended that I use Ben Nye prosthetic adhesive because it is slightly less tacky and dries faster then pros aide. This sounded much more appealing so I went with this recommendation.

I am glad that I had friends do this before because I would have missed a few key steps when applying the mixture. First off you have to apply it in small patches. This is because when it drys it begins to stick to you. this is what you want it to do, however this means it does not spread very well. So you apply a small patch, wait for it to dry, which can be aided by a hair dryer, and then move on and repeat. It does take a couple layers to get even coverage. It took me 2 layers to get my green streak free. I don't think that is too bad.

The other thing I would have missed, and this is important for this costume, is after a small patch is dry you apply baby powder! Why? Because you are using an adhesive, it will begin to stick to itself! It is especially important to do this anywhere it will be touching itself for example the crook of your arm, the back of your leg where it bends, your inner leg/thigh. For me, with this costume, the most important place to do this was my cleavage! XD If I had not applied a crap ton of baby powder to my cleavage I would have had a uniboob due to it sticking to itself. The baby powder helps to get rid of some of that tacky residue the adhesive leaves.

Because you are essenctially covering yourself in a glue it sticks to your skin! This is the reason I like this method because that means it does not come off on casual contact. I had people coming up to me all day wanting to huge me but were afraid to so I would put my arm out for them to touch and they were always amazed by how it did not come off. When trying to get it off the areas that it tended to stay the most were around my ankles and the crook of my arm. Because of this I decided it would not be a good idea to use on my face. I would suggest finding a face paint that matches your paint of choice. There several reasons for this, one you want your body to be able to breathe and the mixture hard is to get off. The face paint just makes things easier. I used a Ben Nye cream on my face (http://www.stagemakeuponline.com/02-CL/Creme-Color-Liners-Ben-Nye.html). I also did not paint my hands. I made gloves and tried to match the color of the fabric as much as I could. Kiwi5 said that when she did it cracked there the most because you move and use your hands.

As far as time to apply goes, it took me 3 hours to completely suit up at Comic-con 2012. I was in this costume from around 12:30 pm to 9 pm. It showed a little bit of wear and was beginning to peel but for the most part it stayed really well. I did have a friend help me get those hard to reach places like the back of my arms and legs and my back. Other then that I was able to get the rest of it.

My other note is I would recommend the Ben Nye over Pros Aide. When I first wore this costume at Anime Vegas 2011, I had a friend who made the Poison Ivy Ame-Comi, which is also fully green, and when we were painting her it took about twice as long to dry, it didn't spread as evenly, it was tackier, we had to apply more baby powder, it took an extra layer, and it took a lot more work to get off. I finished before her so I helped her finish up by painting her back. A lot of that time was spent standing there drying her back with a blow dryer.

BY THE WAY!!!......this method does not rub off! I did not leave any green on that bed! :)

I would say the draw backs to doing this method are it takes a long time, and getting it off! Kiwi5 found that the best way to get it off is actually with tape. Like the wide clear tape. I just cut it into strips and treated it like I was waxing. This not the most pleasant way but I found it was the most effective way. Soap did not help much unless you wanted scrub off your skin with it and the actual remover for the prosthetic adhesive just left me with a chemical burn (maybe because of the paint?). Also be prepared to make a mess of the bathroom when trying to get this off. It will come off in flakes. I also found that you should clean the shower as soon as you are done because if you leave it the flakes dry and because it is an adhesive they then stick to the shower making it even more of a pain.

I would say that even with the pain it caused I would paint myself using this method again. It is cheap and the materials are easy to come by which makes matching colors fairly easy. It is a pain in the butt and makes wearing this costume annoying but I feel the end result is totally worth it. I don't think it is much worse then putting on a ton of make-up and doing your hair. My thought is don't knock it till you try it!

For the build of the head phones check out Junker's Cosplay's blog here: http://junkerscosplay.blogspot.com/2012/08/ame-comi-jade-sdcc-2012.html