LadyJoker
New Member
Hey everyone! I'm a newbie to this site, I found it while I was looking up info on how to build Despicable Me minion costumes. A coworker and I were cast in the role of Minion for my department's Halloween skit - and since my co-minion was on her Honeymoon, I decided to just build her costume myself because, well, I'm anal retentive like that 
This is my first build, well, ever. I've pieced together a lot of costumes, and I did a lot of theatrical construction but I slept through the one costume design class I ever took. Well to be fair, I only slept through a few of the lectures and then I stopped going - but I showed up to all the labs! I have a terribly made vest to prove it!
Big thanks to TD2253 for his post on the costumes he made for his kids. It gave me a great place to start when I made my full size costumes.
http://www.therpf.com/f24/despicable-me-minion-costumes-98318/
I used a bunch of $6.00 blue Ozark Trail mats from Walmart. I wound up using 3 per minion, plus one to make the goggles. My engineer boyfriend helped me come up with a template for a "petal" that I could cut into the foam. It is 14" tall and 4" wide at the base.
Next I made a slightly bigger template out of the extra mat that I made the goggles from.
You can probably see where this is going. I used this template on four of the mats. I started out using an exacto knife, but I found out it was easier just to score the mats and then cut them through with a good pair of scissors - they slid through like buttah!
I should probably note that I didn't use the whole mat. I cut them down to about 68.5" so that I would be able to get most of my arms through the costume when they were finished.
Next came the hours upon hours of poking holes in the "petals" and using first gorilla glue (for the domes that would be on the bottom. I wanted them to be strong since we'd be kicking them all day) and then switching to spray adhesive for the two top domes.
At first I used a knitting needle to poke holes in the foam, but then I pulled out my sautering iron and it went a LOT faster. After gluing/tying the petals together this is what you get:
I should mention that I learned an important lesson making these, which is: one room apartments and spray adhesive do NOT mix. Unfortunately I don't have a good outdoor space to use, and I could only work on these at night. My poor 360 controllers are still a bit tacky from the drifting glue. on the plus side it makes them MUCH harder to throw when angry...
So this is my in the middle of my chaotic living room/workspace modeling the party done body. I forgot to take a picture of me covering the top in yellow fabric. I basically just turned it inside out, laid it on top, pinched together some seams and sewed them by hand. It fit well enough that I didn't need to use adhesive over the top.
Thanks to TD2253 I knew that the costume just wouldn't look right w/out having rounded eyes. Unfortunately I don't have the capability to vacform anything as amazing as TD's eyes, so I improvised with some $3 bouncy balls cut in half.
I flipped them inside out so that they were all white, then using my pen and some handy string I made the circles for the eye openings (which I filled in w/ two layers of black mesh) and the irises, which I painted brown.
Next came the foam for the goggles. I measured around the eyes then cut out long rectangles of foam and stitched/glued them together....and then covered them in duct tape because I was too impatient to wait for the gorilla glue to dry.
After this I got a bit rushed to finish in time, so I didn't take as many pics as I would have liked. The next few are of me cutting holes for the mouths and covering the foam (using spray adhesive) w/ yellow fabric and then denim for the bottom.
I used a see-though black fabric for the mouth and then hot glued some faux-leather teeth and a red fabric tongue to it. It worked out great, not only could you see through the eyes, but being able to see through the mouth too helped keep me from tripping over things....well, most things anyway.
I trimmed the goggles to fit flush against the body and then covered the foam in silver fabric and hot glued the eyeballs in place. Next I cut down some cheap clear plastic plates for the "glass" part of the the goggles and fit them into place.
I cut some holes into the top domes so that you could see through the eyeballs, and added a black band that was wide enough to cover the seam where the dome and body meet. I used velcro to hold the two together when worn so that you could remove the top dome if you want. I added some black fabric to the top for hair, and ta DA!
Here are the two finished minions:
The minion on the right isn't really that narrow, the girl inside was just pushing the sides together.
I ran out of time, but I plan on adding the overall buttons and front pockets with the Gru symbol for the next time I wear it. Oh, and I'm also going to add suspenders on the inside - that idea, too, was left out when I had to commit costume triage at the last minute. I'll probably reshape the mouths to be a bit rounder as well- and I'm also thinking about adding some old computer fans inside to keep the costume from getting so hot, but if you wear it outside the temperature is nice.
Oh, and my old costume design professor would be floored - I sewed my own shirt to go underneath my minion! And it actually looked pretty darn good considering I have never sewn any kind of wearable clothing before (if you don't count that tragedy of a vest). Just throw on some $2 gloves and jeans w/ black boots and you're good to go!
Thanks for taking the time to go through this obscenely long post - and thanks again for all the expertise you guys and gals take the time to put on this board. I couldn't have done it without you
This is my first build, well, ever. I've pieced together a lot of costumes, and I did a lot of theatrical construction but I slept through the one costume design class I ever took. Well to be fair, I only slept through a few of the lectures and then I stopped going - but I showed up to all the labs! I have a terribly made vest to prove it!
Big thanks to TD2253 for his post on the costumes he made for his kids. It gave me a great place to start when I made my full size costumes.
http://www.therpf.com/f24/despicable-me-minion-costumes-98318/
I used a bunch of $6.00 blue Ozark Trail mats from Walmart. I wound up using 3 per minion, plus one to make the goggles. My engineer boyfriend helped me come up with a template for a "petal" that I could cut into the foam. It is 14" tall and 4" wide at the base.
Next I made a slightly bigger template out of the extra mat that I made the goggles from.
You can probably see where this is going. I used this template on four of the mats. I started out using an exacto knife, but I found out it was easier just to score the mats and then cut them through with a good pair of scissors - they slid through like buttah!
I should probably note that I didn't use the whole mat. I cut them down to about 68.5" so that I would be able to get most of my arms through the costume when they were finished.
Next came the hours upon hours of poking holes in the "petals" and using first gorilla glue (for the domes that would be on the bottom. I wanted them to be strong since we'd be kicking them all day) and then switching to spray adhesive for the two top domes.
At first I used a knitting needle to poke holes in the foam, but then I pulled out my sautering iron and it went a LOT faster. After gluing/tying the petals together this is what you get:
I should mention that I learned an important lesson making these, which is: one room apartments and spray adhesive do NOT mix. Unfortunately I don't have a good outdoor space to use, and I could only work on these at night. My poor 360 controllers are still a bit tacky from the drifting glue. on the plus side it makes them MUCH harder to throw when angry...
So this is my in the middle of my chaotic living room/workspace modeling the party done body. I forgot to take a picture of me covering the top in yellow fabric. I basically just turned it inside out, laid it on top, pinched together some seams and sewed them by hand. It fit well enough that I didn't need to use adhesive over the top.
Thanks to TD2253 I knew that the costume just wouldn't look right w/out having rounded eyes. Unfortunately I don't have the capability to vacform anything as amazing as TD's eyes, so I improvised with some $3 bouncy balls cut in half.
I flipped them inside out so that they were all white, then using my pen and some handy string I made the circles for the eye openings (which I filled in w/ two layers of black mesh) and the irises, which I painted brown.
Next came the foam for the goggles. I measured around the eyes then cut out long rectangles of foam and stitched/glued them together....and then covered them in duct tape because I was too impatient to wait for the gorilla glue to dry.
After this I got a bit rushed to finish in time, so I didn't take as many pics as I would have liked. The next few are of me cutting holes for the mouths and covering the foam (using spray adhesive) w/ yellow fabric and then denim for the bottom.
I used a see-though black fabric for the mouth and then hot glued some faux-leather teeth and a red fabric tongue to it. It worked out great, not only could you see through the eyes, but being able to see through the mouth too helped keep me from tripping over things....well, most things anyway.
I trimmed the goggles to fit flush against the body and then covered the foam in silver fabric and hot glued the eyeballs in place. Next I cut down some cheap clear plastic plates for the "glass" part of the the goggles and fit them into place.
I cut some holes into the top domes so that you could see through the eyeballs, and added a black band that was wide enough to cover the seam where the dome and body meet. I used velcro to hold the two together when worn so that you could remove the top dome if you want. I added some black fabric to the top for hair, and ta DA!
Here are the two finished minions:
The minion on the right isn't really that narrow, the girl inside was just pushing the sides together.
I ran out of time, but I plan on adding the overall buttons and front pockets with the Gru symbol for the next time I wear it. Oh, and I'm also going to add suspenders on the inside - that idea, too, was left out when I had to commit costume triage at the last minute. I'll probably reshape the mouths to be a bit rounder as well- and I'm also thinking about adding some old computer fans inside to keep the costume from getting so hot, but if you wear it outside the temperature is nice.
Oh, and my old costume design professor would be floored - I sewed my own shirt to go underneath my minion! And it actually looked pretty darn good considering I have never sewn any kind of wearable clothing before (if you don't count that tragedy of a vest). Just throw on some $2 gloves and jeans w/ black boots and you're good to go!
Thanks for taking the time to go through this obscenely long post - and thanks again for all the expertise you guys and gals take the time to put on this board. I couldn't have done it without you
