This is sort of a costume tutorial (sort of) for a desaturated, or black and white photo, costume.

I had been kicking around this idea for a while. I had seen a photo, long ago, of two people — one dressed in shades of red, one in blue. Their makeup and clothes were carefully toned so that each of them looked like they were shot through a red or blue filter. This was long before Photoshop would have made it a two-second process after the fact. But it planted a seed.

I was also rapt by the television fantasy sequence of Flower Drum Song — the black and white cowboys on television come out of the set and dance around, still in black and white. Again, this is far before post-production effects would have made this easy.

Then last year I saw pictures of the Desaturated Santa.

Nope, not Photoshopped; it’s carefully chosen and executed grey costume, wig, contacts, makeup. A masterpiece by a Bay Area woman named Brody.

I kind of knew I wasn’t going to be able to hit a complete home run on my own version of this costume; the simplicity and easy identifiability of her costume and the eternal, perfect red backdrop accompanying her at all times really elevates the effect to eerily magical. She goes into more detail about why her costume works so well, and other observations, on her blog.

She also gives tips and tricks and warnings here — if you’re not up for the challenge, don’t do it. There’s a high change you’ll look stupid. And there are many, many tones of grey.

But when I showed the pictures to Shana, who happens to be a professional face painter, she freaked out. It was there and then we boarded the train — the frustrating, runaway train — that ultimately got me to a satisfying, but far-from-perfect desaturated costume. Or, as I like to put it, A Black and White Photo of my Grandmother.

See? A nice effect but no knock-it-out-of-the-proverbial-park. You can see three incarnations:

1st photo: Friday night. Shana did my makeup so the coverage was perfect. However, Brody was right — I went to an dimly-lit outside party at night and got almost no reaction. When people saw me inside the house it was little better. Fortunately, there was an all-girl Ramones tribute band there, so I danced my cares away.

2nd photo: Saturday afternoon. I did this makeup myself and had huge difficulty applying it. This is why there are professionals to do it, friend. I was halfway through this party and my rosy flesh was peeking through (see my left wrist — my iPhone’s touch screen didn’t work with gloves on, so my right glove was always half off). If I did it again, I would cover up my neck so that there would be less paint to apply. The effect is pretty much destroyed if there’s any real skin color showing.

3rd photo: Saturday night on stage. I reapplied the makeup darker. Audience members said that the effect was good. The bright color of the curtains helped. It was fun to hang with the other Grey-Tones.

Update: did it one more time on Halloween night; this time, with just a light application of the grey makeup and a black tulle shroud. It was a hit, especially since I was with a bemasked and foxyfine Violet, and we were drinking vividly colored cocktails at a classy local bar. We really rocked the casual costume look.

I had more grey makeup that the photo shows. Here you can really see the contacts.

THE PROCESS

Grey eyes are key. It’s a subtle thing but helps to totally make the costume. You can get non-prescription contacts from my friend, the internet. Since I’m nearsighted, I had to ask my eye doctor for a prescription. He let me go in and try on a few different brand of color contacts until I found the best ones. Find a contact that has no brown tones.

Getting everything to look right together. Indeed, as Brody says, there are many different shades of grey. I bought a few yards of black/white fabric. I bought beads, tights, a dress, wigs (a few options of grey tones) and shoes from the thrift. I bought some white fake flowers from the dollar store.

I threw the fake flowers, gloves, shoes, fabric, and the dress (which had white trim) into a regular-strength RIT black dye bath. Everything came out 100% purple. This is where I almost quit, but decided to just try to keep with a purplish-grey palette.

Spray paint is my friend. I used a true grey spray paint to minimize the things that were too purple. It did wonders to the shoes, pearls, and flowers. In hindsight, I might have given a light coating of paint to the wig and gloves, just to bring the colors into a more similar palette.

Makeup is HARD. Brody recommends Krylon Aquacolor body paint. Shana uses a different professional brand, and we had to mix the color (white, purple, black). Using a dampened sponge and lots of mixing/dabbing, it got done. It must be even and uniform for the effect to work. I matched the skin color to the color of the gloves. And, unless you want to look ancient and weird, use eye shadow and mascara to reapply eyebrows, lashes and eye area. Putting black eyeliner pencil on the inside of the lash rim is key, too. For lips I used black eyeshadow with some gloss on top. I’m sure there’s other makeup options.

What would I do differently? Less skin showing (therefore less to paint); pay more attention when the makeup artist applies your paint; try to make time to review and buy a single-color body paint (to avoid the mixing); work a little harder to bring the greys to a more harmonious palette; go for a grey, not black, dress.

Maybe next year: sepia!

Thank you, Shana, for all your help. Hooray for giant challenges and obsessive minds!

Opening my mouth made for a super strange effect.

The two onstage shots are from the amazing Brittany Green.

Photo from Jack and Nik.

Oh, and? If you have sensitive skin, prepare for the revenge of the zits.

Full Halloween photoset