Thomas the Tank Engine

One year it's Cranky the Crane, another it's Thomas the Tank Engine.  This familiar character is well loved by many children, and mine were certainly no exception.

It took a little while to think up the concept, but eventually I hit upon treating the train as a vehicle, and dressing the boy up as an engineer.  We did, however, print out a gray scale version of his face to use on the front of the engine, and made it number '10' for family reasons.

This costume was crafted primarily from cardboard, and was challenging more for the sheer size of it than anything else.  Rather than paint, we used craft foam to give it the color, and I was really very pleased with the overall results.

The proud engineer about to get on board

We used a plastic garbage bag crumpled up to simulate coal.

The best part is that by its very nature, the costume came with a built in place to store all of the treats he received from the neighbors.