Zombie bride: Black lips are key, but Dana started with hints of pink color around the eyes. She worked styling a wig so that the hair stood straight up with backcombing and hairspray. The bonus of a wig with such a labor-intensive style is that you can work on it in shifts and when the evening's over, you can take it off to revert easily to yourself. For zombie bride characters, many people buy inexpensive dresses at Goodwill and trash them, but Dana started with a short strapless bridal look ($50 at Goodwill) and added fishnet, hair net and gray tulle tucked into the sides to give it a weathered, ragged look. She used the same tulle and cut it ragged for the headpiece. We added a spider necklace we bought at Target last year, but thrift stores will have other options.

Seneca Crane, the Head Gamemaker in "The Hunger Games": Jessica Dana slicked back a dark brown wig and started by outlining the beard. It helped that he had a little natural beard to draw around. She filled it in with short black strokes to mimic hair. She layered in gold to add depth. Instead of re-creating the minimal futuristic garb of Crane, we put our model in a blood-red shirt similar to the character's and added a black blazer. Shirt ($45) and blazer ($200) from Kohl's.

Effie Trinket, the escort of District 12 tributes in "The Hunger Games": Dana styled a blond wig into the glam period style and embellished it with big purple roses and two big feathers because exaggerated flowers were a signature of Effie. Instead of false eyelashes, Dana painted swirls on the outside of our model's eye to re-create the spirit of Effie's bizarre eyelash styles. To create a really pale face she used her lightest foundation color and mixed it with white face paint, but depending on skin tone, the foundation could have been enough. "Dramatically paler is the key," Dana explained. The deep purple on the lips and pink on the eyes helped to make her look more washed out by lending the contrast of color. Costume rented.

1980s guy: The FauxRealshirt.com T-shirt ($32) creates an elaborate neon '80s party guy facade with a single T-shirt. We styled Tom's hair (he has it shaved into a Mohawk for an acting role). She kept the rest minimal. Just covered some blemishes and added a little powder.