jordandau
New Member
Hey guys, this is my first post on here
I wanted to do a 1990s TMNT foot clan costume for a little bit now. It's one of those few projects that as soon as I see it, I have most of it fully formed in my head. I wasn't going for full 100% accuracy, kind of a hybrid of what I can get done on a decent budget and skills. I am partially posting to see if anyone knows where or what certain things on it are, so feel free to suggest anything.
So here we go!
Started with a generic spandex mask. The ebay search for that led to some interesting pictures. I then used some armature wire to bend to what I thought looked appropriate for the eyes,
I know that the movie had some type of honeycomb for the eyes like this. I literally took a picture of my TV with my cell phone, so I apologize for all the bad pictures.
Using what I had near to me, I decided to use metal screen material for the eyes. I can always remake this when I figure out what it's supposed to be. I bent the screen over the wire frame I made. Once the shape was made, I snipped out all the supports except the outer ring. I trimmed it a little bit and then folded it over and hand sewed it to the mask, inside out of course.
The metal screen edge made it... Interesting to put the mask on and test fit. I don't suggest it really haha. Even after I got it all situated it was still something from a Saw movie to put on my eyes. So I covered a lot of it with hot glue and that worked great. No more bear trap on my face. I still have to add the grommets for the mouth.
Next up was the arm guards. I did see a little while back, that a person sculpted the arm guards completely from scratch. Well I'm not an artist, but I do know some things when I see them. The triangle spikes I know come as metal fashion accessories, so I went the cheap and easy route. I bought a couple bags of them. I also noticed that the rings look a lot like the old plastic rings from cap guns, so I bought some of those too.
For the guards themselves I decided to go cheap and easy, EVA foam floor mats. For the template I just rolled a piece of paper on my arm and then drew a line down each side I thought looked about where the guards would lie. I wanted a more precise look, so I took that template and just measured the width at regular intervals and then redrew the template with a ruler and measurements. Transfer that onto the EVA foam and cut away.
I just attached the hand guard to the forearm with elastic and hot glue. More elastic and hot glue for the ring style loop to hold the hand guard on. Hot glued all the metal studs and gun caps. I used apoxie sculpt to free hand the character on the hand guard. Once this was all done, 3 coats of plasti dip, primer and paint.
I'll probably make these again, the hand guard doesn't really go far enough over my fingers, so wearing it they like to sit too far back so that the space between the forearm and the wrist sits funny and actually limits movement a bit. Maybe make the forearm a little longer too.
Next up was the headband. I started looking for a decent picture of the symbol, but everything is pretty bad and I'm impatient. So I found a very close actual symbol and used that. I ran that through my room mate's vinyl cutter and had a good stencil. I just used white spraypaint directly onto the fabric. I wanted a fuzzy edged glow effect and it worked perfectly.
Once I pulled the stencil off, I just went over the white with a sharpie and colored it black. I left a little edge to give it a nice glow effect. I think it looks great.
For the suit itself - I went to the thrift store for most of it. Some all black exercise pants, an extra large black shirt with a material that I thought had an interesting texture. An old sweater that had a nice pattern to it that I cut up for the belt and arm wraps. I still need to dye those darker black. The poncho style overcoat I couldn't find a good match. I knew it'd be easy to make so I went to the local specialty fabric store. My girlfriend suggested some type of sports mesh, but then I found this fabric. It has a great texture and it's pretty stretchy. I overexposed the photo so you could see the texture.
I didn't get a photo, but I made some EVA shoulder "wings" to sew under the poncho so the corners stick out a bit. I also grabbed some extra spandex and made a dickie for the mask. I sewed that to the mask and then some velcro to the dickie and the undershirt. That way it stays in place and I can still slip the max off if I want.
For the pants I just measured the size of my knee and sewed a loop that size of elastic to the cuff of the pants. Put the pants on like normal, slide the elastic cuff to my knee, and let the rest of the pants drape over to about mid shin. Some tall dress socks and my already black tennis shoes and you get a test run on the suit.
After this I went out side to give it a little extra that I haven't seen anyone else do on their costumes. I dusted all of it except the mask with some grey primer paint. It's drying right now, I'll put up pictures of it tomorrow night after work sometime.
I still have to dye the old sweater black for all the random wrappings, but it's pretty much done. I may make another set of arm guards, and possibly another mask, just to get it better. But if it was halloween tomorrow I'd be happy with it for now.
If you read through all that, thanks! Any suggestions or tips are always appreciated. I'll update when I do more on it.
I wanted to do a 1990s TMNT foot clan costume for a little bit now. It's one of those few projects that as soon as I see it, I have most of it fully formed in my head. I wasn't going for full 100% accuracy, kind of a hybrid of what I can get done on a decent budget and skills. I am partially posting to see if anyone knows where or what certain things on it are, so feel free to suggest anything.
So here we go!
Started with a generic spandex mask. The ebay search for that led to some interesting pictures. I then used some armature wire to bend to what I thought looked appropriate for the eyes,
I know that the movie had some type of honeycomb for the eyes like this. I literally took a picture of my TV with my cell phone, so I apologize for all the bad pictures.
Using what I had near to me, I decided to use metal screen material for the eyes. I can always remake this when I figure out what it's supposed to be. I bent the screen over the wire frame I made. Once the shape was made, I snipped out all the supports except the outer ring. I trimmed it a little bit and then folded it over and hand sewed it to the mask, inside out of course.
The metal screen edge made it... Interesting to put the mask on and test fit. I don't suggest it really haha. Even after I got it all situated it was still something from a Saw movie to put on my eyes. So I covered a lot of it with hot glue and that worked great. No more bear trap on my face. I still have to add the grommets for the mouth.
Next up was the arm guards. I did see a little while back, that a person sculpted the arm guards completely from scratch. Well I'm not an artist, but I do know some things when I see them. The triangle spikes I know come as metal fashion accessories, so I went the cheap and easy route. I bought a couple bags of them. I also noticed that the rings look a lot like the old plastic rings from cap guns, so I bought some of those too.
For the guards themselves I decided to go cheap and easy, EVA foam floor mats. For the template I just rolled a piece of paper on my arm and then drew a line down each side I thought looked about where the guards would lie. I wanted a more precise look, so I took that template and just measured the width at regular intervals and then redrew the template with a ruler and measurements. Transfer that onto the EVA foam and cut away.
I just attached the hand guard to the forearm with elastic and hot glue. More elastic and hot glue for the ring style loop to hold the hand guard on. Hot glued all the metal studs and gun caps. I used apoxie sculpt to free hand the character on the hand guard. Once this was all done, 3 coats of plasti dip, primer and paint.
I'll probably make these again, the hand guard doesn't really go far enough over my fingers, so wearing it they like to sit too far back so that the space between the forearm and the wrist sits funny and actually limits movement a bit. Maybe make the forearm a little longer too.
Next up was the headband. I started looking for a decent picture of the symbol, but everything is pretty bad and I'm impatient. So I found a very close actual symbol and used that. I ran that through my room mate's vinyl cutter and had a good stencil. I just used white spraypaint directly onto the fabric. I wanted a fuzzy edged glow effect and it worked perfectly.
Once I pulled the stencil off, I just went over the white with a sharpie and colored it black. I left a little edge to give it a nice glow effect. I think it looks great.
For the suit itself - I went to the thrift store for most of it. Some all black exercise pants, an extra large black shirt with a material that I thought had an interesting texture. An old sweater that had a nice pattern to it that I cut up for the belt and arm wraps. I still need to dye those darker black. The poncho style overcoat I couldn't find a good match. I knew it'd be easy to make so I went to the local specialty fabric store. My girlfriend suggested some type of sports mesh, but then I found this fabric. It has a great texture and it's pretty stretchy. I overexposed the photo so you could see the texture.
I didn't get a photo, but I made some EVA shoulder "wings" to sew under the poncho so the corners stick out a bit. I also grabbed some extra spandex and made a dickie for the mask. I sewed that to the mask and then some velcro to the dickie and the undershirt. That way it stays in place and I can still slip the max off if I want.
For the pants I just measured the size of my knee and sewed a loop that size of elastic to the cuff of the pants. Put the pants on like normal, slide the elastic cuff to my knee, and let the rest of the pants drape over to about mid shin. Some tall dress socks and my already black tennis shoes and you get a test run on the suit.
After this I went out side to give it a little extra that I haven't seen anyone else do on their costumes. I dusted all of it except the mask with some grey primer paint. It's drying right now, I'll put up pictures of it tomorrow night after work sometime.
I still have to dye the old sweater black for all the random wrappings, but it's pretty much done. I may make another set of arm guards, and possibly another mask, just to get it better. But if it was halloween tomorrow I'd be happy with it for now.
If you read through all that, thanks! Any suggestions or tips are always appreciated. I'll update when I do more on it.
