Carbon Costume

In Clarence, Darlie is one of the students in Ms. Baker’s 4th grade class. Her costume is a simple one: a long blue pointy hoodie and dark purple-blue boots. Not often seen but she also wears light blue shorts under her hoodie.

Palm (voiced in Japanese by Kikuko Inoue and in English by Karen Strassman) is a prominent character in the Chimera Ant arc in the anime/manga series Hunter x Hunter.

She is part of the Hunters, and her nen type is Enhancement, with her specialty being clairvoyance and being able to track people with that. Partway through the Chimera Ant she gets captured by the ants and turned into one of them, integrating her nen ability more permanently into her body and giving her a fish-based look. She gets heavily attached to people to the point of obsession and stalking, and will go to extreme lengths to go after her object of affection. This is slightly lessened in her ant form.

Palm has extremely long black hair, with the front parted in a way to show the crystal she has on her forehead, and her eyes are a soft grey-blue. She wears a lipstick almost the same color as her eyes, but just a little more purple. Her arms and legs are covered in blue fish scales with fins, and for this outfit (there are a few she has in her ant form) she wears a short lilac colored strapless dress.

Kaio Kincaid (voiced by Stephanie Nadolny and Courtenay Taylor) is the protagonist of Cartoon Network’s OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes.  Kaio, more commonly known as K.O., is an optimistic boy who wants to become the world’s greatest hero.  He works with his friends Enid Mettle and Radicles X at Gar’s Hero Supply and Bodega.  K.O. wears a dark pink headband and matching wristbands, with lighter pink sleeves on his calves.  He also wears dark blue shorts, a white tank top, and a lighter blue vest, which is his work uniform.

This past weekend, the 2024 Oscars were more than memorable thanks to Ryan Gosling bringing the Kenergy to the awards with his explosive live performance of ‘I’m Just Ken.’ Although Barbie didn’t win best picture or director, Ryan truly made a lasting impression by flooding our screens and the stage with pink. He was accompanied by a large ensemble of Kens supporting him as background dancers. The look of the performance was inspired by the iconic scene featuring Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ from the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Of course in this case, Ryan is the iconic blonde and the ensemble wear costumes inspired by the men in the ensemble from the film. Choosing this classic film as inspiration is also fitting as Greta Gerwig took a lot of inspiration from large sweeping sound-stage musicals from that time. The I’m Just Ken scene in Barbie is actually inspired by Singin’ in the Rain, from the dream ballet sequence with Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly.

To dress like a backup dancer from this performance, wear a black tailcoat blazer, white pocket square, white vest, white shirt, white bow tie, black pants, pink socks, and black dress shoes. Pair this with a black cowboy hat and don’t forget to create the pink sash. This can be made by wearing a hot pink 3.5 inch wide sash and either gluing or sewing a 2 inch light pink ribbon down the center. The sash is worn over the white button down tux shirt, but under and tucked into the white vest. This would make for a great duo or group costume with your favorite Kens, and one of them being Ryan’s Ken in the all-pink suit.

Keith (voiced in Japanese by Hiroaki Hirata and in English by Ray Chase) is one of the main characters in the Netflix original anime series, B the Beginning.

He is a genius detective that came out of retirement to work with the R.I.S. in their efforts to catch the serial killer known as ‘Killer B’, which launches him into a much deeper investigation involving the case that made him quit in the first place.

Keith has dark teal eyes with a long thin scar underneath his right one, and he wears thin framed glasses. His hair is blackish-brown and worn in a short, shaggy cut, and his beard and mustache are much the same. The outfit he’s usually seen in is a loose-fitting off-white button up shirt, with a matching set of dark grey suit jacket and slacks, with a simple brown belt. It’s finished off with dark brown shoes, which he wears seemingly without socks.

Tamaki (voiced in Japanese by Yūto Uemura and in English by Aaron Dismuke) is one of the secondary main characters in the anime/manga My Hero Academia.

He is part of the Big Three at UA along with Mirio and Nejire, but vastly prefers to stay out of the focus of attention, as he is highly anxious. His Quirk comes from the foods he eats, which allows him to emulate various animal traits while in battle.

Tamaki has spiky indigo hair that’s very reminiscent of Sasuke or Noctis, similarly colored eyes, and his ears are pointed. He has the bulkiest hero costume of the three, with it being a basic black bodysuit underneath, a white skirt-like wrap over top, and several gold banded accessories. He wears a purple tactical vest with several pockets in it for aid in fighting, a hooded gold and white cloak with a metal neckpiece, and it’s finished off with a purple visor with gold trim.

Enid Mettle (voiced by Mena Suvari and Ashly Burch) is a main character in the animated series OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes.  She works as a cashier at Gar’s Hero Supply and Bodega alongside her friends Kaio Kincaid and Radicles X.  Enid has purple hair she wears in a bun.  She wears brown booties, black compression shorts, and a blue crop top with longer white sleeve-like bandages on her arms.  To build your costume, you’ll need a white shrug and then a blue sleeveless cropped shirt over it along with a purple wig, black bike shorts, and brown boots.

A new TV series has been going viral online for its spot-on live action adaptation of the video game franchise Fallout that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. This series depicts the aftermath of The Great War of 2077, where survivors take refuge in fallout shelters or Vaults, which are actually all created as different experiments on the people who live in them. It follows a woman named Lucy who leaves Vault 33 to find her father in the dangerous wasteland of what is left of Los Angeles. She runs into a Ghoul bounty hunter, originally named Cooper Howard. He was a film actor before the war. In this guide I’ll be covering Cooper Howard’s cowboy costume in Episode 1.

Although this costume looks complicated to make, this guide is doable for an artist of any level. Starting with the iconic blue and gold western shirt, use a blue western dress shirt or just western-style shirt as the base to build off of. For the gold/ cream section on the top portion of the shirt and the sleeve cuffs, cut either a jacquard patterned or brushed twill fabric to the shape of the top of the shirt and either glue it down (the edges will be covered by the fringe trim but iron and fold edges for a cleaner look) or sew the fabric on top. If you’re skilled in sewing and want to take it even further, seam rip the top section from the collar and sleeves and use the removed blue piece as a pattern for the gold fabric, adding seam allowance to sew back in place. You can also add cream piping/ bias tape along the collar and front button panels.

Next, along the edge of the gold fabric you added, either sew or glue on gold fringe trim, following the edge across the front, over the shoulder, and to the back.

Now for the details on the gold fabric: if you choose a printed jacquard fabric, you can keep as is. It gives the same effect of having variety to the surface. However if you have more time to add detail, choose the solid brushed twill fabric and paint and/or embroider a similar pattern of line drawings of scorpions similar to the photos. Doing a combination of both flat painted and 3-D embroidered icons gives it the same variety as the one from the series. You can also paint or embroider (or both) the icons on the collar.

For the rest of the costume, wear brown pants like these western-style Wrangler pants. Bootcut works better to cover cowboy boots like the ones linked below. On top of those, wear a brown cowboy holster belt. More accessories to complete the look include a cream cattleman’s crease style cowboy hat, a sheriff’s badge and a gold neck scarf. To be even more screen-accurate for the scarf, take a solid cream or white bandana, and tie-dye it yellow.

If you have a kiddo that can match with you, you can also follow my guide for Janey Howard’s costume. Even further, I’ve also created one for Janey’s mother, and Cooper’s wife Barb Howard.