Harley Quinn is a popular comic book character, but also an iconic one, and there are lots of them out there. The more common ones are cheap, too. I’ve seen at least four outfits on Amazon for less than $50. That’s not cheap, but it’s not outrageous. You can buy some things without thinking about price, so you might as well do the same with Harley Quinn costumes.

So let’s start with what your Harley Quinn costume will cost in total.

First, the basics: tights, boots, shirt, jacket, head scarf if you have one , mask if you have one or hairnet .— I’m assuming you already have all this stuff. If not, that’s fine; just estimate how much it would cost if you bought it online without any coupons or sales attached. Or ask at your local store.

Next up: wig and makeup .— You can probably get away with just buying a wig at the thrift store — especially since we’re going to be doing this for a relatively small amount of money — and using it for both normal and crazy looks

You do not need to buy a Harley Quinn costume. You can make a Harley Quinn costume for as little as $20, and it will serve the same purpose as buying one.

The real question is: how much money will it cost? If you spend $100 and then buy a Harley Quinn wig, you will have spent $100 and wasted $100. If you spend $10 and then buy a Harley Quinn wig, you have spent $10 and saved $100. Both of those calculations are valid.

But both of them also leave out the cost of the time you spend making the costume. That is the real cost. You can’t really calculate that in cash terms; it is too subjective to be measurable. But you can start with the time it takes to think about what you want your costume to look like, and work backward from there to get an estimate of how much time it would take, on a scale from a few minutes to several hours.

If you want a realistic estimate, start by looking at what your best guess is for how long it takes you to plan your costume: how many hours do you spend thinking about costumes every day? Is that more or less than one hour? Does it take more or less time than this?

You have to know what you want in advance. This does not mean you have to know exactly what you want. It means you must have a rough idea of the total cost of whatever it is that you plan to make. You can then use that number as a target for figuring out how much money will be needed.

So here’s an example from my own experience. I wanted to make a Harley Quinn costume for Halloween, and I had a rough idea of how much it would cost. My estimate was a little bit under $300. The thing I didn’t know was whether I wanted a full costume or just a mask and some gloves and boots. If I had known, I could have put the cost of the costume at about half the target figure, so $150 instead of $300, and cut the money needed by half again.

It’s easy to forget that your costume will cost you money. The more expensive it is, the more money you’ll need.
And the more expensive it is, the less likely anyone is to give you an estimate. The person who makes the costumes usually has little idea of what they will cost, and it’s unlikely you will either.

You could save up for your Harley Quinn costume, but if you do, you will probably regret not running out and buying one. But if you don’t run out and buy one, people won’t assume that means you are waiting until Halloween to get your costume.

It’s a fine choice to identify with a particular character, and it’s even better if you can translate that character into a costume. But to make the ideal Harley Quinn costume, you’ll need to look at the whole thing as a sculpture, not as an assemblage of parts. Your audience will be looking for something familiar, but also something new.

A Batman-Harley Quinn costume works like an inkblot. You see a shape that makes sense to you and fits your interpretation of the character, and then you fill in details that fit your understanding of drawing and costuming. For example, you might find it easy to draw a jumpsuit and mask for Harley Quinn, but it could be much harder to draw an armored corset for her. And if you decide to make the outfit as realistic as possible, remember that pencils are not as stiff as chain mail or chainmail is not as stiff as chain. The costume will have folds and creases where those materials do not have them. The costume will become heavier when it is wet.