Painting Tutorial: Create an Awesome Ouija Board Dress for Halloween

Tools and materials:

• Leather dress
• Fabric or leather paint
• Light marker or chalk
• Cologne
• Cotton pads

1. Degrease the leather dress

An important step before painting on leather is to degrease the leather. Take some cologne on a cotton pad and wipe it all over where you plan to paint the design. 

2. Sketch on the moth

It’s time to sketch! I tried a bunch of different ways to transfer the design I created on paper to the leather dress.

I thought about using transfer paper or even soap to draw the lines, but none of them worked out.

Instead, I decided on a light marker. The lines aren’t very bold, but you can still see them and they’re erasable. For the first design, I’m drawing a moth just under the collar of the dress.

3. Paint over the moth sketch

In this tutorial, I’m using fabric paint, but I do recommend using special leather paints if you have them on hand.

If not, I’ve never had any problems with fabric paints. They work just as great.

I’m making the moth a graphic moth and adding ornaments to its wings.

Once the paint dried, I decided to go over it with purple and black to redesign it a bit.

I painted over the white with black and over the black with purple and I added some new lines until I got a result I was satisfied with.

4. Degrease the leather jacket again

Now, it’s time to work on the Ouija board part. To prepare, degrease the area under the moth and the main part of the dress.

5. Sketch in the Ouija board using chalk

At this point, I’ve found a better way to sketch on leather and actually see the lines which is with chalk!

I can easily write the letters on, and I can erase them just as easily. This is a great tool to place letters symmetrically and be sure of the design before I start painting.

With the chalk, draw on the classic Ouija board style letters and numbers along with the words “yes” and “no” on the shoulders.

6. Paint over the Ouija board sketch

Time to write over the letters with paint. Make the letters white and the font should be a kind of bone font that most Ouija boards have. 

7. Sketch snakes on the bottom of the dress

Now, there’s a huge space at the bottom of the dress which needs to be painted as well.

I decided to go with something I love—snakes! Snakes will make the design look much more interesting, so go ahead and sketch that on with the chalk.

The idea is to paint two snakes on the left and right parts. For this part, I degreased as I sketched the chalk instead of doing it all at once. 

8. Paint over the snake sketch

I started by painting the ornaments of the snake, before moving on to color paint.

I decided to make the snakes purple since the moth was so lonely.

9. Clean the chalk

Once the paint dries, clean off the chalk underneath the paint with just some water. This will also answer the question of what will happen to the dress if you get caught in the rain. 

10. Sketch and paint snake tails

To finish off the dress, sketch and paint snake tails on the back of the dress that are connected to the snake on the front of the dress.

Here’s the final result of the Ouija board dress!

It’s very fashionable and I can wear it anytime I want, not just on Halloween. You can replicate this dress or just use it for inspiration to create your own black leather Halloween costumes. Let me know what you think about this dress down below.

If you enjoyed this tutorial, check out my post on How to Customize a Sexy Halloween Costume Bodysuit.