Aku

I'm reasonably proud of my work on this one.  My kids really enjoy the cartoon "Samurai Jack", so they asked to be Jack and Aku for Halloween in 2013.  I have another post about the Samurai Jack costume, you may want to check that out, too.

Aku is a menacing black demon with fiery eyes.  His signature colors are black, red and green, and they are always prominent in the many forms he can take.  Aku's default look is tall and thin, which suits the build of my younger son admirably.

I particularly liked this series of images, which actually has approximately correct proportions between Aku and Jack.  Google even turned them into an animated .gif for me, which I'll see if I can embed.

The head and body covers were all made from whole cloth.  I learned quite a bit in the process, as this was my first attempt at sewing a costume from scratch.  The flaming eyebrows and beard are made like stuffed animals and sewn to the hood.  The horns and projections on the shoulders and elbows are made the same way.  The gloves were an interesting challenge, and it took me a couple of tries to get them to fit right.

My wife handled the makeup duties, and the teeth are just ordinary plastic vampire teeth available at any costume shop.

Hot Dog and Fries

This was one of our earliest attempts at Halloween costumes for the kids.  It was years and years ago, and to be honest, I don't really remember whose idea it was, or what may have inspired us.

I do remember that the 'B' on the front of the french fries was my idea.  That was, of course, inspired by the Golden Arches of McDonald's.  Since our younger boy's name begins with a "B", I thought this was a nice twist.

The materials for both costumes were primarily hot glued craft foam.  Yes, the hot dog could have turned out better, and if I had to do it all over again I'd probably go with cloth instead.  This costume was not terribly flexible.

For the french fries, though, the foam was an excellent choice.  It's got the stiffness and sturdiness we needed to keep the container in shape, and the available color palette suited the concept admirably.  I don't think I would change a thing.  Probably the hardest part was the pattern of lines on the inside, so I left that for my wife, the graphic artist.  I'm just a simple programmer, and drawing things frightens and confuses me.

Introductions and Stuff

Every year in October, I spend a frantic couple of weeks just before Halloween, working on costumes for my kids.  Sometimes they're easy, sometimes they're very difficult.  Once in a while they're incredibly impractical.  Nonetheless I think they've tended to turn out pretty well, and people enjoy them.

I never tell the kids what I'm going to make for them, at least since they've been old enough to have an opinion on the matter.  Rather, I ask them what they want to be and do my best to come up with that.  We have worked with various materials, starting off with craft foam and hot glue.  We've used cardboard quite a bit, I took a diversion into whiteboard, and in recent years I've acquired a decent sewing machine and learned enough to make things out of cloth.

My wife and I also enjoy Renaissance festivals and such, and in fact our wedding had such a theme.  We keep telling each other we're going to make costumes for that, too, and maybe this blog will be enough impetus for us to actually do it.

I'm going to document some of what we've done over the years, and going forward I intend to capture more of the process rather than just the end results.  I hope you enjoy it.  For that matter, I hope I enjoy it, too.