kids sized godzilla, I'm stumped....

[thedap]

got "volunteered" to make a costume for a friend's little one.

he's only 5 but pretty dang smart for 5, going to be hard to cut corners and fudge it much.

the little bugger spent 20 minutes telling me how to make it, he actually had some pretty good ideas.

I picked up some nice dark green jersey material and some textured dark green cotton, it's got a nice wrinkly crepe texture. almost dead on for his skin.
trouble is that it's not nice and stretchy like the jersey stuff, but it will look alot more realistic. a kind of gabardine cloth if memory serves me.

the rugrat had a good idea about sticking the head onto a bike helmet and covering it with a hood of sorts. I'm thinking velcro to allow it to break away if needed, instead of breaking his neck (tempting, but too much paperwork afterwards)
I picked up some nice black and white buttons to combine for the eyeballs. wont be too hard to do the head, I did a similar wolfs head belaclava a few years back, it came out fine.

my concern is the overall shape, godzilla has sturdy thighs and a pear shaped body, and I can't go padding the heck out of the costume as the weight and the insulation might cause a great amount of discomfort (his, not mine) the tail is supposed to be fairly thick too, I bought polyester batting to stuff it but filling the suit would be impractical unless its compartmentalized and lined with the jersey stuff.

maybe something like a hoop skirt to balloon the belly and thighs out?
any ideas how to go about that without it looking like a chinese lantern?

any and all ideas welcome!

 

[cannonballfx]

got "volunteered" to make a costume for a friend's little one.

he's only 5 but pretty dang smart for 5, going to be hard to cut corners and fudge it much.

the little bugger spent 20 minutes telling me how to make it, he actually had some pretty good ideas.

I picked up some nice dark green jersey material and some textured dark green cotton, it's got a nice wrinkly crepe texture. almost dead on for his skin.
trouble is that it's not nice and stretchy like the jersey stuff, but it will look alot more realistic. a kind of gabardine cloth if memory serves me.

the rugrat had a good idea about sticking the head onto a bike helmet and covering it with a hood of sorts. I'm thinking velcro to allow it to break away if needed, instead of breaking his neck (tempting, but too much paperwork afterwards)
I picked up some nice black and white buttons to combine for the eyeballs. wont be too hard to do the head, I did a similar wolfs head belaclava a few years back, it came out fine.

my concern is the overall shape, godzilla has sturdy thighs and a pear shaped body, and I can't go padding the heck out of the costume as the weight and the insulation might cause a great amount of discomfort (his, not mine) the tail is supposed to be fairly thick too, I bought polyester batting to stuff it but filling the suit would be impractical unless its compartmentalized and lined with the jersey stuff.

maybe something like a hoop skirt to balloon the belly and thighs out?
any ideas how to go about that without it looking like a chinese lantern?

any and all ideas welcome!

Butterick made a "Dinosaur" pattern #(5724) that is a good starting point for a fabric Godzilla costume. They pop up on ebay alot, and can be found easily on a google search.

 

[exoray]

Have you considered the inflatable child's costumes as a base?

The Sumo, Plumbers Butt or Clown costume will give a lot of bulk to the body, with a little reshaping and reskinning it will probably make a decent zilla...

 

[terryr]

About ten years ago I saw one made by a mother of a little boy. It was fantastic. Spikes on the back, padded out, and big feet, but the cloth stopped at his face and they used face paint. Probably safer.

 

[SgtFang]

I made one for Nic about 10 years ago, but I got a little carried away. :$

It was mostly foam rubber built onto one of those once piece Power Rangers costumes.

I made the head out of sheet foam, and sculpted the face with a dremel on high speed w/ a sanding wheel. I sculpted latex inserts for the inside of the mouth, and made oval resin disks for the eyes. The neck area was sheet foam wrapped and glued around a coffee can

For the body, I cut millions of foam rubber "french fries" from the foam sheeting and glued them on with liquid latex. For the tail, I used one of those roam rubber rods they sell as pool toys. I covered it with layers of the foam fries to get it to the right shape.

For the hands, I free sculpted one hand in clay, and dipped it in liquid latex for a few coats. When the latex was cured, I peeled it off, moved the thumb on the clay sculpt to the other side and repeated.

For the feet, I stacked more foam to the right thickness, shaped with the dremel, and added latex claws, and latex pads on the bottom made by just pouring some latex on a sheet of diamond textured ceiling light plastic.

The fins were just cut out of more foam and painted with precolored latex, as was the rest of the suit.

I'll see if I can find the head later and get some pics.

-Sarge