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Becoming an annual tradition, several GI staffers and I made our way to Zombie Pub Crawl VI: It Just Won’t Die this past Saturday. Attendance skyrocketed this year, with over 12,000 undead wandering the streets of Minneapolis when we arrived on the scene early in the evening. We’re told that even more corpses arose from their graves as the night unfolded.
Taking advantage of the massive photo op, Ben, Annette, and I hunted down the more interesting ensembles of the night. Sure, extensive makeup work and prosthetics resulted in some impressive animated corpses, but we found the undead Starfleet members, pandas, and video game icons significantly more interesting.
As for ourselves, we decided to go against the grain and dress as various zombie exterminators. Annette – armed with a makeshift Molotov – borrowed my costume and stepped into the sneakers of Zoey from Left 4 Dead. She decided to don the slightly altered ensemble from the original L4D concept art. I opted for the obscure, dressing as Resident Evil 5’s Excella Gionne. Only a handful of lucid zombies seemed to know who I was, but I’ll take quality over quantity.
Ben’s Dead Rising tribute went over really well, although anyone who recognized him seemed indecisive about whether he was Chuck Green or Frank West. By the end of the night he willingly accepted the moniker of either protagonist, in addition to “LEGO man,” “Lego Wolverine,” and “Wolverine Pac-Man.”
Also joining us was Ben’s brother Sam, who stole the show as an undead Pikachu. The guy was a chick magnet. Last, but not least, our friend Britty took on the zombie horde as Jill Valentine, another one of my costumes from a pub crawl past.
I consider Excella “closet cosplay” because I ended up spending about ten hours on the ensemble and less than $50 total. Knowing that it would take some damage, (and what do you know, someone sprayed the back of my dress with a squirt-gun loaded with fake blood within an hour) I didn’t spend too much time on it. Not to the point that it deserves its own photoshoot or that it should be considered on par with my other costumes. However, it was still fun to make.
I picked up all the satin fabric I needed for $20 and sewed the dress is less than four hours without using a pattern. I had the belt and shoes and simply sprayed them gold to match the gold ring, earrings, and bracelet I bought. The necklace was a last-minute purchase. I was planning on making my own from scratch as Excella’s is very unique, but when I found this one in the clearance rack I decided it wasn’t worth the effort of constructing one. The final touch was a fake syringe that I found for a sexy nurse costume, which was actually a pen. I removed the insides and added a bit of wire to look like the needle. It turned out pretty convincing.
The hair and makeup sold the costume, and were easy enough to do. Oh, and lots of dress tape was required…obviously.
All and all, the event was fun and the costume was well received – even if half the people who seem to enjoy it didn’t know who I was. 
Check out the full set of photos from the pub crawl here.
