Advice about cute, girly monster costume.

[spaz2phreek]

So I'm going to be a cute, girly monster for Halloween this year. Here's the plan:
Purple fur, sort of form fitting dress.
Tights. One pair worn regular way, another cut out at the crotch & worn as a top for color on my arms. Cuffs of the fur.
Shoes either painted or covered in fur.

Hair - Curly, wild & sprayed purple to match the fur dress.
Makeup - vivid eyeshadow that will spread out towards the temples & upper cheekbone area
Wild false lashes (have you seen some of these faux lashes these days? Awesome!)

And now, my question.
Should I be all purple or should I use contrasting color tights? Problem is, I don't think I want to do green as Barnie sort of made purple & green impossible to wear without being ridiculed. I don't like pink. I'd love to do a vivid, teal/aqua -ish blue but I can't hardly find any tights without ordering them online & paying unholy amounts of money.
Yellow, orange, red are all icky with purple.
So I'm thinking black but I feel like black & purple gets a little too gloomy. I want to be a fun, party monster. Not a doom & gloom type monster. Maybe black & white striped...Problem there is I'm short & a curvy version of a fairly thing girl. I worry that horizontal stripes would make me look...squat. Shorter & wider.

I'm open to all feedback/suggestions. Thanks so much.

*Also, credit for this idea goes to a fellow Craftster, though it's been years since I saw that post & I can't find it anymore. But it wasn't my idea & I'm not going to pretend it was.*
 

[Aislynn]

What about black and purple stripes?  Or blue, or a lighter purple.  Or you could take a white or purple pair and color all over them with markers.  (stretch them carefully across a cardboard tube, like a giftwrap tube, first)  I don't think all purple would look bad, but I think a contrasting color (not black!) would look awesome.  I know you can dye synthetic wig fibers by leeching the ink of sharpies into rubbing alcohol, I wonder if you did that, if you could dye or tie-dye a pair.  Oh, also, don't forget that you can layer sheer tights, and have them come up different colors.  You can also layer tights and fishnets for an interesting look.

[chezlin]

Yellow is actually the complementary color of purple   But anyway, regardless of whatever color you choose, you could just buy some white tights and dye them the teal color you want.  I also like the idea that Aislynn said about coloring them with markers.  If you do it the marker way you can totally draw patterns on them!  Like scales!  Oh man, now I want to make this costume haha

[Alexus1325]

Eff Barney. I think lime green and purple go awesome together

About dying tights: If they're nylon, wool or silk, they will take KoolAid really well! Just buy the kind that you have to add the sugar to, put one or more packets in a pot of water and heat it to steaming. Wet the nylons, toss em in, stir more or less constantly, and about ten minutes later (or longer if necessary) add some vinegar. Keep stirring, and about five mins after that, huck it all in the sink and rinse with cold water until no more KoolAid comes out.

Here's a word-tute on dying yarn with KoolAid that you'll want to read over:

http://www.thepiper.com/fiberart/koolaid/basic-howto.html

And a handy-dandy chart showing what colours result from which flavours of KoolAid:

[applesandpumpkins]

That koolaid thing is so cool! And it makes so many pretty colors. I really like the idea of drawing scales on the tights, too.
For the contrasting color, I'd probably do a bright turquoise or coral, or maybe even both. (They have cute bright colored tights at Target, by the way!) I can picture a cute fuzzy earflap hat with polka dots in one of the contrasting colors. Gosh, I kinda want to make this too, now. It sounds so cute and easy!

[bunnicula]

I know that you said that you didn't want to use these colours, but I think that green, yellow or orange would work well with a purple costume.

[spaz2phreek]

Thanks for all the feedback! Sadly, midterms got in the way of having any fun...Found some teal tights at Target (thanks, appleandpumpkins). Sewing marathon tomorrow...

[MaxParadise]

haha, i was just gonna say they have some teal tights at target! glad you found them and your costume sounds awesome. can't wait to see pics!