First of all sorry about the bad quality pictures, I forgot to take my camera to the party I wore my cosplay to XD But anyway, My friend Serena suggested that I dressed up as Ryan Ross (ex Panic! at the Disco guitarist) this Halloween as she was going as Brendon Urie (singer of Panic!) and I was extremely excited about the idea! This post is about my process of making the costume!
I decided to go as 2005 Ryan from the live in Denver show which was recorded for a DVD. This is my favourite of his make-up looks and the fever you can't sweat out period was my favourite Panic! at the Disco era! I spent some time gathering reference photos and browsing charity shops for things I could use since I didn't want to spend a lot of money as I was only wearing the costume for a few hours at a Halloween party.
I ended up finding this shirt in British Heart Foundation for £3 which was such a great find because the material and pattern is very similar to that of Ryan's waistcoat! It was 3/4 sizes too big so I took in the sides to make it more fitted, then cut off the sleeves to begin turning it into a jacket.
To do this, I measured how wide I wanted the shoulder to be and used berry pins to mark out the arm holes. On the inside of the fabric I used a white pencil to draw a line where pins are, took the pins out and then sewed a new seem. I was sewing by since I didn't take my sewing machine with me to uni. I also removed the lapels using the same method.
For the 3D roses I bought some cheap hair accessories from an independent clothing store and some paper craft roses from Wilko's. I removed the clips and hair ties off the larger roses, and then painted them all with crimson red acrylic paint to match them to the jacket better and make them all the same colour. When dry, I pinned the bottom leaves to the jacket and sewed them down. Then I just took a long chain off of an old necklace with that I never wear and used safety pins to attach it to the jacket (the roses hide the metal) and then it was finished!
I used the same acrylic mixed into a pot of water to dye a white [100% viscose] scarf that I purchased from Poundland a matching colour since I couldn't find one close enough in the shops. I just left the material in the watered down paint overnight then left it do dry and finished it off with a hair dryer to speed of the process and soften the fabric.
Since my hair is half blonde, half purple, I bought a really cheap brown wig from ebay for £3/£4. The picture to the left shows what it was like when I bought it. I created a side parting and cut in layers, using hairspray to fix it in place. Although this was a synthetic wig, it seemed to work pretty well. For anyone wondering I used Treseme ultra fine hairspray in the strength number 4. I took away most of the shine of the wig using dry shampoo. This makes it look more realistic. When I wore it on the day of the party I just styled it with a brush/comb and more hairspray :)
For the make-up I applied my usual foundation & powder. Since I pluck out the ends of my eyebrows I was able to fill them into a shape more like Ryan's but this isn't a necessary step! I used a red lipstick as a base for the eye shadow although I wouldn't recommend this as it took a few washes to completely remove XD I went over it with a deep pink eye shadow and created a gradient with a dark purple. I lined my water line with a white khol pencil to make my eyes look bigger, and then outlined them with a black eye pencil. I applied a black eye shadow over this and blended it out to create a smokey eye, and then to darken it even more I outlined my eyes with a liquid eyeliner. I drew on the birds with liquid eyeliner too, and finally put on a rose red lipstick to complete the look!
In some photos Ryan isn't wearing gloves, and others he had black fingerless ones, but I really liked the ones he wears when he plays the banjo at the Denver concert. I looked in the costume store for some white butler-style gloves but they only had black ones. Instead I just got some woolen ones from Primark - the silver rhinestones reminded me of Panic's 2005 aesthetic. I had white versions of the paper roses I used for the jacket from The Range (although Wilko sell them too) and I just poked the stem through the gloves and then coiled it inside. This way I can remove the roses without damaging the gloves and wear them as everyday fashion when it's cold.
And that was it! The shirt I already had (from New Look a few years ago) and I just wore black skinny jeans and boots with everything I had made! I hope this was useful to you if you are planning to make something similar and/or enjoyed reading this post ^.^
