Disney Cosplay: Ursula from The Little Mermaid - Part 3

Part 1 and Part 2 of this costume are done - onto the finishing touches now.

Step 4 - the Bling

Ursula wears a gold shell around her neck, the one she uses to capture Ariel's voice. She also has purple shell earrings.
I started with two snail shells that I picked up in the bush. Not sea shells, but I had looked and had no luck finding an intact shell of a good size to use. I could have made one from scratch, but I haven't dabbled much in clay or foam so this was a good option. I did two so that I had a test one, wanting the big one to be the final one.

I filled the holes in with multipurpose filler, taking care not to stuff too much in as I was worried that it might expand.

After a week set aside to dry, I started painting. It was very pale at first, and patchy, so I knew that I would have to layer the paint.

After a number of layers they look more like this! They really shine under the light, too.

I did try adding a varnish over the top to seal the colour in, but all of my tests came out lumpy. It was like it was reacting with the paint. We even tried my husband's spray-on varnish, but it was way too blobby. So I left the shells as they were and hoped that I wouldn't encounter any water that might wash the colour off!
I glued loops of wire on the back to hang the shells off and was very happy with the finished results:

Onto the earrings.
Same process as the gold shells: found matching shells on the beach, filled the holes, and painted layers of bright purple on. Because the colour was less transparent, it took half as many coats for these.

I went and found earring attachments after some puzzling about how to connect them, needing the shaped pieces to glue on to hold the shells to the ear hooks. 

It was the simplest and most attractive way of doing it.

With the bling done, it was just the final touches left!

Step 5 - hair and makeup

I found out that Ursula was based on a real life drag queen - that explains a lot!

The makeup was achieved with a trip to a costume shop in town, because I needed thick colour to put on. I used a brush for my face below, but a sponge should give a smoother colour.
At some point in the future I would like to figure out how to airbrush colour on so that I could be all-over purple for this outfit.

I have to decide whether to just do my face (which would be a lot cooler up here) or my whole upper body - everything that shows above the dress. I'll probably go with just the face, because I'll be doing it all myself on the day and it will be hard to reach my back.

I did try a wig, but decided that I like white hairspray instead. It will be thicker on the day than what I did above!
There are some props that I could carry as Ursula:

• The contract that Ariel signs
• the sea witch's lipstick and mirror
• The two eels, Flotsam and Jetsam 
• Triton's crown and trident

But I decided that I was fine as-is. Now to wait until the day to put it all together... photos to come!
#lovelypennypatterns