Gearing up for Halloween as anything from Paul Bunyan to a glamorous skeleton, Spartans took their spirit to  Dublin Square Irish Pub Wednesday night.

Many chose to enter in The State News’ Fright Fest costume contest in hopes of winning one of the three prizes.

It didn’t matter whether the costume was homemade or store-bought. All that contestants needed to win was the most Twitter favorites of a picture showing off their costume.

The pictures with the most favorites received first place, and a $100 gift card to Dublin. Second place won free pizzas for one year from GoombaS Pizza, and third received $20 of cab cash from Party Van.

This year’s first place winner is education senior Mark Wright for his Iron Man costume. Second place went to general management senior Kirstie Liakos for her Barbie costume. Finally, third place was awarded to Taylor Mckader for an Austin Powers costume.

Spartan Iron Man

Sparty might have some competition this Halloween.

Decked out in green and white, Wright entered the costume contest as Spartan Iron Man.

“I wanted to be this because I just love comic books,” Wright said. “I love Iron Man.”

Wright said he cut a garbage can to create his “iron suit” and made slits in it for abs. To top it off, he carved out a Spartan head on his chest and had a light shining through from behind.

“Behind the garbage can is a garbage bag and a clear film to diffract the light,” Wright said.

He said it took him two days to make this complex ensemble two years ago.

“This is the third year of me wearing it,” Wright said. “Everyone asks me to take a picture with them — I took a lot of pictures that I’ve never seen.”

Glamorous Skeleton

Undecided senior Kaci Card based her entire costume off of her makeup choice, and decided to be a skeleton.

Going for a look that was half skeleton, half glam, Card followed a makeup tutorial she found on YouTube.

“I only did makeup on half of my face because I didn’t want it all to be dark,” Card said. “I wanted to still look pretty.”

Card said it took her 30 minutes just to put on all of her makeup, paying attention to every intricate detail.

“We only have one mirror at my place, so I did my makeup before all of my roommates did,” she said.

Paul Bunyan

With a red flannel, a green hat and suspenders, Paul Bunyan stopped by the costume party.

Hospitality business senior Gabe Wood said his inspiration for the costume was the game last Saturday, which the Spartans won, keeping the Paul Bunyan Trophy in East Lansing.

“At first I was going to be just a lumberjack, but then I had to go for Paul Bunyan,” Wood said. “I’m a trophy, I guess.”

Wood said he usually throws a costume together without paying for anything, but this time around was different.

“This year, for Paul Bunyan, I got my boots out of my closet and had these jeans,” he said. “I had to buy the suspenders though, but I think they really finished off the job.”

Snap, Crackle and Pop

In search of a costume fit for a trio, MSU alumni Nolan Dowd, Brenna Egan and Madeline Verbeke decided on Rice Krispies mascots, Snap, Crackle and Pop.

“Trio costumes aren’t very common,” Dowd said. “We thought about the The Three Stooges, or doing rock, paper, scissor, but we landed on Snap, Crackle and Pop.”

Egan said putting it all together was pretty simple.

“The hardest part was finding the right hats for each of us to fit our character,” Egan said.

She said she and her friends usually do something homemade every year.

“Last year, the two of us were Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy,” she said.

Franzia

Although he might have had some trouble walking through doorways, advertising senior John Flynn got a lot of attention dressed up as the boxed wine Franzia.

“I found this idea on a website called instructables.com,” Flynn said. “There are 1,000 different costumes on there and it teaches you how to make basically anything.”

He said he usually has a real bag of wine on the side that people can drink out of, but he couldn’t bring it into the bars.

“My girlfriend and I get into fights because all of the drunk girls come up to me and are like, ‘I want to slap the bag!’” Flynn said.

He said it took him three or four hours with his girlfriend’s help to put the box together piece by piece.

“I had to use a hot glue gun and everything,” Flynn said.

He said it’s been his costume for two years now because nothing could top it.

Black Widow

Unlike many of the others, dietetics senior Erin Sauve chose to go out on a whim and purchase her Halloween costume this year.

Sauve bought her costume, the Black Widow from “The Avengers,” at the Halloween store in Frandor. She said half of the time she buys her costumes and the other half she makes them.

“I just knew I wanted to be her,” Sauve said. “I like what she wore and her hair is curly and so is mine, so I could pull it off.”