Ursula

Costume Debut: June 2016

Costume Reprised: March 2018, October 2018

Honors: Most Spooky Costume on Disney Cruise's Halloween on the High Seas

For many years, cosplaying Ursula was a pipe dream of Irvin's - she's one of Irvin's favorite Disney characters, but is one of the most challenging to cosplay. By 2016, after over seven years of cosplay, Irvin was finally ready to take on the challenge, and pour everything he had into this costume for the 2016 Mermaid Parade.

Some things, like the wig and the shell necklace, were bought online for expediency. But the biggest challenge - the tentacles - were created from scratch. It began with black tights that were filled with air pillows - the kind one gets in Amazon's boxes when ordering packages. Of course, Irvin lamented ever throwing them out, and had to get a box of them... and Staples had no boxes of less than 150, so there will be plenty of costumes made in future with the same technique. After the tights were filled, their underside was created with purple fabric, and a lighter fabric for the suckers. Hot gluing the fabric to velcro and to the tights filled with air pillows was the simple part. To account for stretching, the underside of the tentacles that'd be Irvin's legs had to be hot glued while wearing the tights - great costumes demand great sacrifice.

The tentacles were tucked into a black belt that went over a black tube top, that was filled with perhaps the biggest balloon boobs Irvin had ever used. Irvin's boobs kept popping during the day, since all of Coney Island kept groping and motorboating them, while the sweating and the tube top kept fraying them. Irvin went through almost an entire pack of balloons.

The makeup presented its own challenge. Determined to be thorough, Irvin got lipstick and eye shadow to match Ursula's, and even created her mole. But then he had to spend over an hour painting his entire top half purple. He had hoped that the makeup would act as an ersatz sunblock… and it didn’t. His skin turned steadily scarlet underneath the purple, leading to a really fun sunburn at the end of the day given the tube top.

Before Irvin departed for the parade, he stopped by to show off the costume to his family. His four-year-old niece, who has evidently seen The Little Mermaid, ran from the room in tears because Ursula is scary. The extent of her trauma has yet to be determined.

At the parade, there was a positive plethora of Ursulas, but several people told Irvin that he was the best one they'd seen. Irvin made a point of it to get photos with every Ursula, and together they bullied the few Ariels who showed their fins. Irvin even ran into a King Triton, and promptly started to wrestle him for the trident.

Throughout the parade, Irvin kept singing snippets of "Poor Unfortunate Souls" (his #1 karaoke jam), and even did a few renditions of the song in its entirety. None of the people marching with Irvin will ever forget the importance of body language!

All things considered, the costume is actually quite comfortable. For Irvin, cosplaying Ursula was a dream come true - it was the most ambitious costume he had attempted to date, and in his estimation, it's the best out of all his costumes. If he can bring Ursula to life, the sky's the limit!

Irvin was so proud and so fond of the costume, that he decided to wear it to AwesomeCon 2018 - the only costume of his at that con that wasn't brand-new. Luckily, there was no shortage of Ariels at the con to torment, and Irvin got to ham it up all day long. A particular highlight was when he and his friends got a photo with Charisma Carpenter (from Buffy and other shows). Charisma was most intrigued by all the purple, and once she was assured it wouldn't end up on her white sweater, she asked Irvin all about the costume (until the handlers intervened because time was a-wasting).

Later that year, Irvin went on a Disney Cruise in late October, so it was "Halloween on the High Seas." Upon hearing that there would be a Halloween party and a costume contest, Irvin realized that reprising Ursula would be the obvious course of action. Even though the tentacles and other paraphernalia constituted fully half of Irvin's luggage for the cruise, it was totally worth it.

The minute Irvin entered the adults-only Halloween party as Ursula, he turned heads; for the rest of the cruise he was known and complimented for Ursula. He arrived in the nick of time for the costume contest (purpling up takes a while!). He was nominated in the category of "Most Spooky Costume," which seemed appropriate. The contest was decided by audience applause, and Ursula won in a landslide - it helped that Irvin yelled, in the middle of it, "KEEP CLAPPING!" in his best Ursula voice. Irvin now has a very fancy trophy proudly displayed right near the tentacles at home.

After the contest, and after one or two spirited renditions of "Poor Unfortunate Souls," Irvin and his friends went for a photo shoot. The Disney Magic provided many incredible opportunities for photos, like portholes and a seashell-patterned carpet. But the best photo came from when they went onto the deck. Immediately recalling the scene at Vanessa and Eric's wedding when Ursula reveals herself and crawls towards Ariel, Irvin set about recreating it. The end result is among the most terrifying things Irvin has ever cosplayed - see below. It was totally worth the giant splinter he got.

After the photo shoot, Ursula and company returned to the dance party, where it was pretty much just them dancing up a storm. To Irvin's great delight and surprise, Ursula is a wonderful costume to dance in. The outfit is comfortable and offers great freedom of movement, and the addition of four tentacles and enormous boobs provides lots more to shake as one dances!