The only “unprofessional” things about the outfit is the sponge nose. and the cheap “Party Store” hat. Huge no-no in the clowning world. It makes you look like a guy dressed up like a clown and not a real clown.
Either get some clown makeup and make the tip of your own nose red or get a real clown nose from a place like this: ProKnows.
Then find a nice hat. Try thrift stores. If you can’t find something in a color you like, paint onr or decorate it with a wide colorful band.
There are many, many styles of clowns. Look at them. Not all of them look at all like the “clowns” the average layman on the street is going to think of. Don’t let a bunch of Dopers to tell you you need to have more colors or patches or stripes or whatever.
Better hat–or at the very least take the white elastic chin strap off that one–and a more professional nose and you’re there.
Can you tell us about your clown? Clowns normally have a personality, so the costume would depend heavily on that. Have you taken any clowning workshops? You might also be interested in mask workshops, as they deal with the impact of the way you look on your performance. This could both help you find “your clown” and help you find the costume that is “your clown”. *
For a more traditional clown look I agree that rolling up the trousers and wearing silly high socks would help. Adding colour to the white coat would be fun, you could go with cuffs, lapels and pocket, perhaps in a fun print (polka dots? bright tartan?). Clowns often use the contrast of too large and too small for comic effect. Your coat is large, so you could opt instead for a very small tie, or a small hat. The buttons are great, but wouldn’t it be funny if they were huge?
The most important thing is that it is your clown. When you have it, it will feel right. You put on the costume and you immediately slide into your clown.
Please can you tell us more about what you want to do as a clown, this is very interesting!
This is all assuming you want to seriously go into clowning, not just a fun night out.
Shoes are too plain or just non plain enough for the rest of it.
(I might suggest either plain brown/black shoes that fade in or go a little more bright colors to stand out.)
I think a little make-up would be great.
As a super geek, if you are having problems with any make-up issues and don’t feel comfortable discussing with lots of other folks or can’t find folks who do makeup, might I suggest your friendly local costume make-up stores. They usually have generally friendly people who can help you find what you want. Or if they don’t work or float your boat, a group of local LARPers (Live Action Role Players) that do makeup might be an alternate crowd to hook up with. (It’s always amazing when I join in on make-up discussions with various groups of women and they look at me completely odd.)
You both sound as though you may be professionals. Yes, I am looking into this as a career not just a Halloween costume. I’ve been trying to find an alley in the Philly area. But, so far no luck.
Re My Persona
I am The Silly Man. Most clowns move boldly and dramatically. IMHO This is one of the things that scares small kids. So, the Silly Man is timid. He stresses that he needs the kids’ help and belief to make his tricks work. He also stresses that he is the children’s co conspirator. As he would say ‘It’s you and me against the real grown ups’. The Silly Man cannot juggle or ride a unicycle (Though I’m working on the second). He does do simple magic, twist balloons and have other skills.
Re The Coat
I’ve been thinking it needs something. I originally wanted a techicolor dream labcoat. But two of my friends (One’s a great illustrator, the other’s a great photographer) said it was fine the way it was.
Re Knee High Socks
I love it! I shall begin looking for appropriately silly socks.
Re Make Up
I don’t want a whiteface. IMO That really scares kids (and some adults). I am open to adding a few touches here and there.
FYI, I learned basic three-ball juggling in my mid-twenties, entirely from the book “Juggling For the Complete Klutz”. It was much easier to learn than I expected. The best thing was to start with small bean bags rather than actual balls, because the bean bags don’t roll fifty feet away every time you drop them (which will be a lot). In fact, the book came with three cubical bean bags, each maybe half the size of a Rubic’s Cube. If you can find it, it’s well worth it, dunno if it’s still in print.
With the lab coat, I’m thinking instead of a doctor vibe (which, AFAIK, is pretty common), you could be a “goofy mad scientist”. With a heart of gold, of course.
I could see that working quite well with your Silly Man character idea. Scientist Silly Man tries to make cool scientific discoveries/inventions that kids would love, but needs their help, too! Science might be at odds with “magic” and needing kids to believe for tricks to work, but instead of needing their belief, you could have them help by being like a magician’s audience participation. So the larger set up story is some awesome invention or whatever, the kids are lab assistants and you incorporate your magic tricks INTO that story.
You could even geek out and teach some cool science trivia, or plan “problems” in the experiments that Scientist Silly Man can’t figure out, but the kids can shout ideas (making the set up easy enough so that a kid could figure it out) and solve it.
If you have a partner, s/he could play the part of Random Serious Grown Up who doesn’t approve of all this silly nonsense and wants you to focus on serious grown up stuff. S/he could “randomly” wander into the area, at which point y’all have to pretend NO COOL EXPERIMENTS ARE GOING ON, NO WAY! It could help solidify the feeling of Scientist Silly Man being the kids’ co-conspirator and that they’re all up to something fun.
I suppose you don’t want to be Mr. Creepy Clown? I guess then go with the “mad scientist” theme, 'cause you don’t want to suggest to parents that you want to play doctor to their kids.
So, on the lab coat I would replicate the diamonds on your tie.
Like a big orange diamond w/a bit of red edge as the left pocket on the front and a big red diamond with an orange edge as the right pocket on the front. (Looking at your tie, they should probably actually be squares turned on their sides)
Then on the back, I would put big hand prints, like someone had smacked you in the butt.
Or a flattened dog then you can say… “I brought my doggie with me, but I haven’t seen him since I got in the car. He was right there on the seat…” then you turn around and the kids see silly squished dog on your behind with bulging eyes and a ‘oh no!’ face.
(Would be great if you could actually pull him off your backside (Velcro or just loosely stitched onto the coat before each performance), then shake him out like a sheet off the laundry line, put him into a “magic kennel”, then have a real trained dog come out and do tricks for the kids)
Then once doggie is off the coat, leave a set of paw prints there under neath of him (or you could use the paw prints to hide the Velcro)
No, you don’t want to do whiteface. Potential scariness aside, traditional whiteface clowns were generally the straight men. “Silly” characters are more likely to have an exaggerated but more human look. You do want to have some makeup, though–rosy cheeks and/or Groucho eyebrows. Good, simple, well done makeup can really enhance the image. There are lots of good sites online that offer makeup tips.
The Clown Forum has lots of links to useful sites. http://www.clown-forum.com Discussion can get heated there, and not all of it is helpful, but if you’re careful, you can bring away some good advice.
IANAC, at least not a professional one. I’m a student of clowning, though, and I’ve clowned in public a few times.
Take the time to study. There are LOTS of bad clowns out there. If you want to seem professional or pursue it as a career, you need to invest the time and effort that goes into doing well in any other career.
I’m not a professional clown but I trained as an actor. There’s some crossover.
I love your clown, he sounds really lovely. As you’re still developing, I’d be sure to keep an open mind and not fix the character too much yet.
Have you read Impro: Improvisation and the theatre by Keith Johnstone? Obviously it’s not about clowning specifically, but it’s about spontaneity and improvisation, and he also talks a lot about children. There is also a section about masks, where it gets really crazy. I honestly recommend this book to everyone, it’s not really a guide for how to do anything, it’s just his experiences. But a very good read about creativity, and I think it would be very relevant to clowning. TBH it’s pretty relevant to most of life in general.
I agree you don’t necessarily need make up. Your face is really friendly and accessible, but also really expressive. If you know someone who is good with make up you could always ask them to experiment a little just for fun. I have some friends who do it so well, they’ve terrified me by making me look old. It could just be a tiny addition that is barely noticeable, or you could just decide it’s definitely not your clown. Either way, messing around with make up is fun. Especially if it’s with a creative genius with make up!
Please keep us posted, I would love to see your clown develop!
DocCathode, I’m a member at clown-forum.com, too, but I hadn’t been over there forever.
I see you got some good advice when you posted photos there last year. Your costume has progressed since then. You should go back and post an update there.
I agree with gracer about character development and acting skills. I was involved in theater, puppetry and lots of public speaking before I first tried clowning a few years ago. All of those skills and more come into play when you’re a clown.
I do think you need makeup. Clowns often go as far as saying that every bit of skin that shows should be made up. A clown is really more like an animated character than a human. You would never accept Shrek as an ogre if the green didn’t go all the way around to the back of his neck. Kermit hits the nail on the head with the comment about “a guy dressed up like a clown” vs. a real clown. I wouldn’t say you need to do “full” makeup, but a “light Auguste” style of makeup to highlight your facial expressions will make you look professional.
It took me a while to find a style of makeup that suited me. I have a goofy web page here: Humblestone G. Willikers, but I removed my contact info, because I’m really not pursuing the clowning right now. If you search “Humblestone” on the clown forum, you’ll find me, and there might be photos of how bad I looked at first compared to what I ended up with. I have a Humbleston G. Willikers facebook page, too. Here’s a head-to-to photo from there: Homecoming Day Fair
Also notice how I addressed facial hair, which can be a real problem with clown faces.
Many SCARY clowns are simple the result of really bad, crude, amateurish makeup. It’s very tough NOT to make clown makeup look creepy.
My entire costume except for the shoes was found stuff. Most of it was in the house.
