amazingmumford
New Member
Hi, I've been a member here for a couple years and have bought some amazingly cool replicas from some of the members here. This is, to my knowledge, my very first thread and I decided to enter this contest because I saw a posting about it on Facebook. Halloween has always been my favorite holiday and I've always been known to go a little "crazy" for it, so it only made sense for me to go as my favorite Muppet, Crazy Harry! I really wanted this costume to be as close as possible but I did run into some challenges on the way. I wasn't at first sure exactly how I would be seeing out of the head...at first I thought it might be through the mouth. I took a full body photo of myself and in photoshop blew the picture up until I was full scale in my computer. Finding what limited reference I could find of Harry online I brought those tiny jpeg images into photoshop and blew those up as well until my body fit proportionally ( as close as possible ) into Harry's and it was then that I realized that I would be seeing out above his eyes and through his hair. From my photoshop images I was able to print out many letter sized prints of the the head that needed to be assembled like a puzzle so that I had front and side view full scale images that I could take measurements from for building the necessary parts. The main part of the costume, the head, was built on a bike helmet in which I created a sintra and foamcore underskull to support the foam rubber, styrofoam, fabric and wig hair. I took apart and old halloween talking tombstone and used the motor to create a mechanism that allowed me to open and close Harry's mouth by the movement of my jaw ( the wires ran down my back to my back pocket where it was plugged into an 8 pack battery case of AA's ). The most challenging parts for me were trying to create the proper head shape out of the foam rubber sheets and learning how to use a sewing machine for the "skin". I built a foam rubber vest which gave me more of a "hunch back" to simulate the look of a persons hand going into the back of a puppet ( can't really see in the pics provided but I can shoot a pic if anyone is interested ). Hands were also sewn and I cut slits in them so I could use my actual fingers when needed. I located the perfect shirt in which I made larger silver buttons for and the rest of the costume was just a pair of jeans and shoes that I thought worked well. Now what would Harry be without his explosives?!, so I built some dynamite, bombs that can hold sparklers and a TNT plunger that contained a confetti cannon! Through the process of building this I learned a lot and there were little things needed to be tweaked here and there which changed the look or the shape of things a bit as time when on. If I were to do this again I think I would be able to create an even better likeness of Crazy Harry but for a Halloween costume I didn't want to spend too much money on I think this turned out pretty good and lots of people knew who I was. I'm an artist who is now mostly stuck at a computer and just felt the need to build something fun! I hope you all like it...I had a blast!! " Did someone say "Blast"?!!!!" KABOOOOOOM!!!!!!