The Ultimate DIY Guide - Black Canary Costume

Sep 20

Written By Randy Ho

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Black Canary is the sexy and strong super-heroine DC character with expert martial arts skills and the power of the sonic scream, the Canary Cry. The current Black Canary, Dinah Laurel Lance, is the daughter of the original, Dinah Drake Lance. Her character is often seen in a relationship with Green Arrow. Black Canary has been a part of both the Justice League and the Birds of Prey. She originally started off as a side character to another spinoff character of the Flash, Johnny Thunder. As you can tell, Johnny Thunder didn’t take off, and instead, it was Black Canary that proved successful.

Follow our guide to create the perfect DIY Black Canary cosplay! We will be using the Black Canary costume from the comics, but the CW’s Black Canary from Arrow can easily be created by swapping in black pants and combat boots.

Btw, make sure to scroll down to the bottom of this article for a complete makeup tutorial!

How to DIY - Black Canary Costume

Hair

If you’re willing to change your own hair, you can get your hair dyed at a local salon. Or you could save your wallet and DIY with a kit at home. Don’t forget, in order to get the perfect blond curls, you’ll need to bleach your hair first if you’re a brunette. You can either permanently dye your hair, or you could temporarily change it. We have provided both options below!

If you want Black Canary’s beautiful long, blond tresses, you’ll need to either dye your hair or buy a wig.

Body Suit

Black Canary has worn two different types of body suits. She has both a high neck and a corset style top.

Leather jacket

Black Canary’s kick-ass outfit wouldn’t be complete without her cool trendy leather jacket.

Fishnet Stockings

To showcase Black Canary’s sexy, strong legs, she wears fishnet stockings. They don’t provide much protection, but they certainly allow a lot of flexibility for when Black Canary needs to use a round house kick.

Gloves

Fighting in hand-to-hand combat can be pretty rough on your skin. Black Canary frequently fights using her expert skills, so gloves are a must have.

Boots

Black Canary is never without her tall black leather boots. If you don’t already own this closet staple, they should be easy to find especially around fall time.

If you are strapped for cash, you can use costume boot covers instead with a pair of shorter boots you might already own.

Choker

If Black Canary’s outfit weren’t bad ass enough, she also wears a choker when she’s wearing the corset style top.

Embellishments

Sometimes Black Canary’s costume adds a little color to her otherwise all black outfit. You can add 2-inch gold straps to the backs of the gloves and up the entirety of the boots. The gloves should have two straps each, and the boots should have five.

You can visit your local crafts and fabrics store and pick up metallic gold cloth. You could also use any color of smooth fabric for strips and paint them gold. You’ll have to attach the strips to your outfit using tape, glue, or by sewing.

Another alternative would be to use gold tape.

Black Canary Cosplay Makeup Tutorial

Ruby is half of the sister duo, Formidable Artistry, on Youtube. Together the two put together beautiful makeup tutorials for both social occasions as well as for their favorite holiday, Halloween. For their 31 days of Halloween makeup tutorials, Ruby shows how to do the make-up for Green Arrow's Black Canary. Let's take a look at her tutorial!

1. Cover your eyebrows with spirit gum in order to keep them down. Ruby recreated the Black Canary on the CW's Green Arrow who wears a mask.

2. Apply eyeshadow primer on lids and a little on brows.

3. Draw an outline of the mask with the white pencil. There is a curved shape across the forehead and rounded v shapes at the bottom of the mask underneath the eyes. Draw the outlines of the eye shapes to help distinguish the area for eye shadow.

4. Use a black eyeliner pencil and line top lid, lower lash line, and water line. With the same pencil, line the crease.

5. Blend everything out with a brush.

6. Take matte black eye shadow and apply back over where you applied the pencil.

7. Blend everything with a blender brush.

8. Use Blurr shadow to help blend out the black and go over where you applied the eyeshadow and eyeliner.

9. Use medium brown eyeshadow to fill in the inner half of your eyelids.

10. Use a light pink-gold shadow to highlight your tear duct areas with a small brush.

11. Use the black hydrocolor makeup paint to outline the mask and eyes. If you make any mistakes, just use a wet q-tip to wipe away what is necessary. This should be easy to do at this step as you have not applied foundation yet. Then fill in the mask with the same black paint.

12. Take the black eyeshadow you have already used and gently press it on top of the black face paint mask to make sure it stays in place with a brush.

13. Use a beauty blender to apply foundation on your face and neck.

14. Take a small amount of black shadow with a small brush and add shadows to the outlines of the mask. Add shadows to the eyes and to the bottom of the mask.

15. Use white eyeshadow to add small lines to the sides of the nose of the mask and the top of the mask near the eyebrows to add depth.

16. Apply false eyelashes.

17. Apply taupe powdered blush to the hollows of your cheeks with a fluffy brush.

18. Apply reddish dark sugar plum colored lip liner and fill in entire lip.

19. Apply deep burgundy lipstick. Lightly blot your lips with tissue if they are too glossy.

And there you have Black Canary! Sexy, strong, and mysterious. You can have the appearance of wearing a mask without all the hassle of actually wearing a mask.