THIS IS THE TALE, OF-

Miguel *merkymerx finally got to do one of his dream costumes — Captain Jack Sparrow! And we were able to have a proper shoot for it last weekend

Walls of text ahead for those interested in some background info on the shoot and costume!


_{About the photo:}

Miguel as Captain Jack Sparrow (based on the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides)
photography and lighting by Erving
makeup, direction and post-processing by me

This shot was based on one of the images from the Pirates of the Caribbean shoot by Annie Leibovitz (my hero) [link] For anime cosplay shoots, we usually mimic artbook illustrations for our photos. Since this costume is based on a movie, we used promo pics as reference.

We shot our photo at a studio. Erving handled the photography and lighting, while I handled the art direction. That entails things like making sure that the significant pieces of the costume were in place, checking if the light was hitting Miguel's face correctly, and directing the way he was posing along with his his facial expression. (I made him laugh a lot in the process.)

I also handled the post-processing — extracting Miguel from the raw photo with the studio setup, composing the background image, tweaking the colors, adding atmosphere. It's a lot of work and I'm still practicing and learning, but ahh, I enjoy what I do. One of my dreams is to work on movie posters.

The sky photo in the background is actually just one of the photos I take on random days when I see a beautiful sunset outside my window. It sure came in handy! The rest of the stocks are from free stock photography sites.


_{The captain's makeup (LOL):}
Miguel had me help him with his makeup, and I was quite happy about it because for once, the eye makeup doesn't need to be neat! I really have no makeup training and only treat it the way I would treat paints and pastels. I put a gunmetal base under the black kohl for the eyes because seemed to look better than just using plain black.

Contouring was really fun to do. I found that apart from shading around the cheeks and jawline, shading around the curve of the nose defined his look a lot. The facial hair also helped modify the natural contour of his face.

To make his skin darker, we used some sort of spray-on makeup. We're looking into other options because it still kind of rubs off on the inside of the shirt.


_{About the costume:}
The costume was a whole other adventure! As always, our group of friends helps each other out with our costumes, so we were with him every step of the process. It was pretty amazing to see how passionate he was about getting things right to do justice to one of his favorite characters.

We assisted Miguel a bit, but he really did a lot of the work himself. He made the dreadlocks for the wig, a lot of the objects in Jack's hair, distressing the sash and bandana, tea-staining the shirt, and so much more. The first time we saw him put everything on, we were all pretty much floored and felt like we were looking at Johnny Depp. (He even practiced doing the voice and gestures, hahah) I personally think the final outcome looks fantastic, but he's still not completely satisfied and intends to keep working on it.

_{Some of the people that Miguel wants to thank:
people at KeepToTheCode forums
Richard Maldonado for the belt buckles and sash
Sparrow Goods's wig making tutorial
Janty Chattaw's costume tutorials
Tyrranical Piratical Treasures for the wig gear and belt effects
Mary from Gemsandknots for the butterfly bead
Badj Genato for tailoring the clothes
Angie for embroidering the pattern on the vest
Daisy and her crew for making the boots and baldric
AC Hernandez ~Karumaru of Pahimo-bai for making the pistols and sword}

_{A little story:}
One part of this costume — the piece of snake vertebrae — Miguel and I chanced upon a store with accessories made of animal bones while we were in the island of Boracay. It led us to make the acquaintance of a fascinating character who calls himself Payat. He gave us a night's worth of interesting tales. It comforted us when he said that the bones used in the store were not from animals that were hunted for that purpose. They're remains dug from the ground by natives in a mountain region. Sharing stories and isaw _{(grilled chicken intestines on a skewer — they're yummy)} with him was one of the highlights of our trip.


_{Daily Deviation!}
We are incredibly honored that this has been featured as a Daily Deviation! Sincerest thanks from me and our little crew for everyone's appreciation! =tanya3286 and ^pullingcandy, you have no idea how happy your words have made our captain! Bring out the rum, me hearties!


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