15ft Stay Puft Marshmallow Man: Need ideas!

[Gilgamesh76]

Each September, my friends and I participate in a 5k costume race. Every year we seem to get bolder in our ideas of having the extreme costume and theme. For 2013, I would really like to do the Ghostbusters theme; A 15ft Stay Puft chasing the ghostbusters. The idea would be to have two "runners" in the legs. I have a whole year to work on this project and would like to have something realistic and impressive at the end. I would be grateful to any suggestions and ideas on the internal and external materials I would consider when building. Below are a few requirements I'm thinking are essential...

* Lightweight
* Durable (will be running this costume in 3 5ks throughout the fall)
* Marshmallow type texture
* Modular (need to be transported)

Note: I'm not a professional in prop building, but maybe with the help from people in the forum, I can complete a great finished costume.

Thanks for your ideas!

 

[Gigatron]

I would think a mesh frame, made from chicken wire, oversprayed with expanding foam. That should give you strength, stability, modular breakdown and a marshmallow type of texture.

Build each leg in 3 segments, the arms in 3 segments, the body in 2, and the head as a sperate unit. Then when you need to assemble them, you can use zip-ties, mechanics wire, and bungee cords, to hold the whole thing together.

After you've created the mesh form, spray the outside with expanding foam, and then shape with a hot-wire cutter and a rasp. A quick spray of white paint, and you're good to go.

-Fred

 

[spydrwebz]

Personally if I were doing a 5k run i wouldnt want to be in anything that hot.Have you considered having someone make you an inflatable balloon that you can tie to your ghostbusters? At 15 feet tall youre going to have a lot of problems with traffic lights, electrical wires and tree branches so Id definitely scale it down a bit.

If youre serious about making one of these. I would go with large bubble wrap because its lightweight and kind of looks like marhshmallows anyway.

 

[DeathProof]

Personally if I were doing a 5k run i wouldnt want to be in anything that hot.Have you considered having someone make you an inflatable balloon that you can tie to your ghostbusters?

That's the first thing I thought of. Having two runners in the legs...it's the old two person in a donkey problem - the legs will never match up and could pose some serious problems, even injury.

I would recommend doing a type of balloon. Even have 'handlers' maybe as other ghosts? (Just so they aren't just in black attire), and you keep the ghostbusters in front running away. It's safer, and the handlers have all the control in case of traffic lights, cables, etc.


**Great idea for a run, btw!**

 

[Dynofiend]

Ive seen the 8ft inflatable staypuft lawn ornament modified into a costume. It seemed to work really well with minimal modification.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Inflatable Lawn Decoration Costume Modification - YouTube

 

[spydrwebz]

Ive seen the 8ft inflatable staypuft lawn ornament modified into a costume. It seemed to work really well with minimal modification.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Inflatable Lawn Decoration Costume Modification - YouTube

That was a good video and instructable. Made me wonder how much better someone from the RPF could make it look? I would have used white mesh behind that see thru window and white duct tape instead of framing it. Not too sure about the battery.coathanger and fan/coathanger setup. Shouldnt be that hard to fashion a backpack to hold those pieces for a run.

 

[Harry Bardwell]

there is a website that makes larger versions of staypuft all the way up to 30 foot that are inflatable just like the lawn one, I believe the new hamshire gb's have a 21 foot tall one, so you might can just buy a 15 foot inflatable one if you where dead set on it being that tall

 

[Pattyk77]

Could be difficult with 2 inside running but would look cool if pulled off. You could modify an inflatable like someone said and your partner good go as a ghostbuster and run behind you holding a proton gun?

 

[sigmfsk]

That was a good video and instructable. Made me wonder how much better someone from the RPF could make it look?

Here's one that I just made. Well, mostly my mom made it, as she did all the great sewing work.



Used 7 gauge white plastic mesh for the viewport, backed by 20 gauge clear plastic vinyl to keep the air in. Added a rear zipper, and reinforced the feet outside and inside with vinyl, and added feet straps. Instead of using the original fan for inflation, I used a standard battery/fan pack used for walkaround.com inflatable costumes, and ran the air inlet to the original fan hole on the right rear leg. The white body material is designed to be somewhat see through (so the interior LED lights can be seen when its used as a lawn ornament). I'm wearing a white sweatshirt in the above pic. Next time I use it, I'll also wear white sweatpants and white gloves so that I'm harder to see inside. In the pic above, I'm lightly holding the inside of the costume so to keep it from swaying around too much when I was running.

Easy and fun to hobble around a small distance with it, but running a 5K would be a workout (and excruciatingly slow).