Dagona 19

In my youth, I was terrified of mirrors.  Now, this wasn't true for the daytime, mirrors were fine during daylight hours.  It was when the sun went down and the night-time came on that my terror grew. 

After dark, mirrors terrified me.  I had to avoid looking at them in the dark, because my over-active imagination would practically scream that at night, something terrible happened to my reflection.  Something sinister and evil replaced me, would be able to come at me out of the mirror if I looked at it.  At night I would be forced to get up to seek out my mother for comfort.  The only problem was that there was a full length mirror in the hallway of our flat, and I would have to pass it to get to the living room.  I cannot recall how many times I rushed past, fearful of what I might see in that mirror, or what I couldn't see.

This fear, as I have just discovered, is called Catoptrophobia, a phobia of mirrors.

This piece is for Through The Mirror Stock Challenge a competition run by .

I started thinking about my phobia of mirrors, and wanted to do something that touched on that, something scary that could be waiting for its chance to crawl out of the frame and snatch me away, or perhaps an element of myself that sickened and terrified me.  My first thought was to create a dark bird costume, something crowlike.  Then (and most likely because I am reading The Shadow Over Innsmouth at the moment) it hit me that I could do something much more interesting.  I came up with the idea of making myself up as some sort of hybrid fish monster (I'm also a Pisces), something which evoked fear and disgust. 

I used modelling wax, fake acrylic nails and fangs, along with white body paint, spirit gum and a lovely four metre length of blue satin.  Mucho gracias to for taking the pictures (as always, he is Camera-Man), and to his girlfriend Polly for being my makeup assistant and helping stick the nails to me.

My stock rules: nothing racist, homophobic or misogynistic. If you want to profit from anything you create with my stock, talk to me first.  Please also provide a link to your creation on this page.