Character Costumes

My short film only features two characters, and I want their costumes to be very recognizable. I have the recently deceased characters, James, and the Grim Reaper. I have two ideas for what both characters are going to look like.

James as a character isn't too happy about dying, and is taken by surprise. For his costume, I was thinking of just a dressing gown. It high lights the fact that he wasn't prepared in anyway for his death, and would be quite memorable. One of my inspirations for this was the film The Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. Martin Freeman isn't at all prepared for the destruction of Earth, and therefore for the rest of the film, while travelling to different planets, he is dressed only in a dressing gown.

  

For the Grim Reaper, I was thinking of an mostly black costume. So something light would suit James better. Something like this: 

As mentioned earlier, I want the Grim Reaper to wear mostly black. I think I have decided that for the time being, I am going to have the Grim Reaper be an older man in a black cloak. The Grim Reaper is normally depicted with no face or a skeletal face. Like below.

However, after the first scene, the Grim Reaper would actually pull down his hood to reveal that he's just a old man. Maybe mid 50's.

The plan is get someone to model the two costumes, not the actual actors (As I haven't decided who they will be yet!) so I can get a look of what the costumes will look like. Then after I've found the actors, do the same again. 

Reflective comment: Knowing what the characters are going to wear is quite important as it can be quite hard to visualize the scenes when you don't know what the characters look like. Now I that have a rough idea of what they will be wearing, I can start to visual the scenes a bit better. This will also make story boarding a whole lot easier.