Designing and making your own Halloween costume – Introduction

Hi there! I’m relatively new to W88 and was asked to blog a little bit about some things I have going. I have an Arduino sensor project I’ll be writing about later as it gets a little further along, but seeing as Halloween is right around the corner, I thought I’d start with designing and creating your own Halloween costume.

The design I’m going to be shooting for will be made out of EVA foam and should be relatively inexpensive, pretty durable, easy to work with, and not require a whole lot of tools. However, I’ve never done this before so these posts may just be a documentary of my crashing and burning.

I have two sons – aged 4 and 6 – who both absolutely love the video game Skylanders (and the sequel Skylanders Giants). About a month ago my wife made a passing comment that, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we all dressed as Skylanders for Halloween?” I don’t think she anticipated the grandiose visions I had, but I thought it’d be a great excuse to learn several new trades. The plan is for my oldest to be Ignitor, my youngest to be Chop Chop, my wife to be Ninjini (Giant) and me to be Eye Brawl (Giant). In reality I’ll be ecstatic if I finish my boys’ costumes.

Ultimately I’ll be using Pepakura to create templates that will be used to cut and glue the foam; however, I couldn’t find any Pepakura models of any Skylanders so I’ll be creating my own and I’ll be using Blender to do that. But whatever your costume is you might want to see if someone else has already created a model. For example if you want to be Iron Man just search for ‘Iron Man pepakura files’ and you might just find something.

So what will you need to get this all accomplished? Here’s what I can think of so far:

  • Pepakura
  • Blender (optional)
  • Gimp and pen tablet (optional)
  • EVA foam sheets
  • Hot glue gun and hot glue
  • School glue, bucket and brushes
  • Spray paint, masking tape and paper towels
  • Poster board
  • Duct tape (optional)
  • Chicago screws (optional)
  • Plastic buckles and strapping (optional)
  • Imagination
  • Lots and lots of patience

That about wraps up this first article.

Planning ->

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