Welcome to October! Less than 30 days to get all your Halloween plans together, including choosing a killer costume. If you’re still unsure what to dress up as, I’ve got a roundup of links that are sure to get your creative juices flowing.

Not sure where to start? The best tip I know of is to choose a Halloween costume that you’re genuinely interested in becoming. If you spend your days dreaming about how badass ninjas are, then be a ninja! If you really like a character from a movie or comic, become him or her for Halloween. For all you mavericks out there who want to do something truly original, dream up your own character. Feel free to borrow from any themes that appeal to you, whether they will “make sense” to other people or not. Grab a wig, a loud jacket, some face paint, and be who/whatever you desire. That’s the magic of Halloween, kiddies.

And now onto the costume idea sites. If you know of a website with inspiring costume ideas, leave us a comment.

• Costume Critic: Peruse and rate hundreds of costumes. This site has great browsing capabilities so you don’t have to waste time sorting through themes that you aren’t into. I love looking at Costume Critic throughout the year, too: it’s a good pick-me-up when Halloween is still months away.
• Halloween Costumes Group: My favorite flickr group. Filled with tons of inspirational photos. Lots of creative homemade costumes, as well as better views of ready-made costumes.
• Costume Party Group: People in costumes. Or costumes without people in them. Or people who are merely disguised a bit, or perhaps dressed a little funny… feel free to stretch the definition a bit.
• Instructables Costume Tutorials: Learn to make a costume, step by step, with a How-To from Instructables. The first 3 pages of results are great.
• Costumes Group: Costumes of all shapes, sizes and colors. Halloween as well as those dressed to the nines in something fantastical.
• Science Fiction/Fantasy Convention Costumes Group: Pretty self-explanatory, eh?
• Masked Faces Group: This group doesn’t allow Halloween masks, so instead it is full of more creative mask options.

Photo by Georgios Wollbrecht