Pokemon Snorlax - 1:1 Full scale

Velluminous

New Member
Hello everybody!

(Edit: Just a heads up, I'm looking for some ideas on how to make an internal structure for this. It needs to be collapsible and strong enough to support, while being as light-weight as possible! Comment your thoughts/suggestions below, or link to large-sized builds on therpf that have internal supports. THANKS!!!)


Hope I'm posting this in the right section! So... Where to begin with this? It all started around the end of September last year. I had always wanted an EPIC halloween costume. I'd happened across Black Meadow Studio's Snorlax and thought "You know what? That's the kind of outfit I want. That's what I'm doing. I'm gonna make a full scale, 1:1 Snorlax."
I'd dabbled in a little Iron Man foam armor before (I made the feet, shins, and thighs but ran out of time/motivation), so I had a basic understanding of how to put this together... I just didn't really have the time. You see, it was already the end of September. That gave me one month to knock out this entire thing before Halloween hit.

Go big or go home, right?


Part One: Putting the ideas to paper.

Day 1: So I'd picked out the costume. Hard step done, right? The problem was, there really wasn't a design out there for a costume like this. Black Meadow Studio's Snorlax actually had designs you could buy, but that would require an overhead projector and a few other things that I just really did not have the time/space/money for. So I was on my own on this one. I could try to free-hand this, but let's face it; I have no artistic talent to speak of and it would've looked terrible. That left me with the only option I could think of... Learning how to use Pepakura Designer.
I was already familiar with Pepakura Viewer from my dabbling with Iron Man about 7 years prior... Rusty? Totally. On top of that, now I had to find a model of Snorlax (3D model, no less!) or design my own model. Thankfully, I found a guy who had ripped all the Pokemon Go models. I managed to get it imported into PepDesigner and was immediately assaulted by a giant red mess. Oh yeah.. that's right. Now I have to unfold this thing myself. What had I gotten myself in to?

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To be absolutely honest, I was skeptical. But more importantly, I was motivated by excitement. I was gonna do this. I only really had some flimsy card stock (no one in this area sells the good card stock needed to pep costumes) to print on.. and we're talking regular sheets of paper. So I had a mile of cutting and taping to do before this thing would be anywhere close to assembled. A week had almost gone by, and I barely had Snorlax close to anything resembling unfolded. I decided to focus on the head first. Probably not the smartest idea, as anyone who does any costuming will tell you that the first place anyone looks is the face... So if you don't get that right, everyone will notice. Thankfully, this guy would end up covered in fur, so minor blemishes in cutting and gluing would be pretty much unnoticed. It was all a matter of getting the shape right.
At least all I needed to do was bisect Snorlax down the middle, print half his body, then just flip the cut-out for the other half. That would save me time (and materials!).

Day 6: I'd managed to get half of Snorlax's head unfolded (granted, it would still need tweaking here and there to fit on printed pages). So I printed my first test print. His face. It wasn't much, but it was enough to give me an idea on the scale. I'd gone too small. If I wanted a full 1:1 Snorlax, I'd need a 6'11" costume. At what I was calling "size 8", the costume would be about a foot and a half short (Which would be a problem, as I'm 6'2" tall, so the costume would be shorter than me!). To keep things simple, I set things up to "size 10", and started re-printing. Below, you'll see my first attempt at printing, followed by my second attempt, and a size comparison. You might be thinking, "Oh, that barely fits on that chair." Yeah, that's a cuddle recliner. It's a two-person chair. This was gonna be HUGE.

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With a giant Snorlax face staring at me (and the smaller test version taped to the living room wall courtesy of my kids), I began unfolding with renewed vigor.


Day 9: By now, I was starting to get back into the groove of things. Cutting and taping.. it was all coming back to me. I started working on the ears next. Here's a picture of HALF of the ear unfolded in front of my keyboard... Just so you get an idea of how big this thing is. By this time, my wife was ready to kill me. I'd only printed the face and an ear and our color ink cartridges were screaming "no more!"... and seeing as how it was my wife's printer, I realized I was now going to have to grey-scale everything. Anyways... I had been printing, cutting, and taping like a maniac. I was nervous, but it was about time to begin the next step... the one where I really would need to commit; The Transition to Foam.

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To be continued...
 
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Part 2: The Transition to Foam

Day 10: No turning back now. I went with an EVA foam mat that I'd used previously with the Iron Man build that I'd never finished. I'd highly recommend it, but good luck finding it because I got them at Sears, which closed a bunch of their stores. Meijer actually carries the exact same type of foam mat for a similar price. They're hidden by the yoga mats in sporting goods.
One ear... was big enough to cover my head. I went all out on Day 10 and did the entire head. Pretty much every day from morning to bedtime was spent working on Snorlax at this point.
I also got my "Snorlax Fur" in the mail from Target. They're actually blankets. I just went with what I thought looked the softest/fuzziest/best-matching-color I could find. I didn't know it at the time, but I totally under-estimated the amount of materials I was going to need for this. I'd end up ordering another couple blankets for in-store pickup/next-day later on. Blankets and foam were pretty much the bulk of my costs for this build.

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PS: Snorlax is SUPER SOFT.
 
Days 11 & 12:
By now, I'd gotten my fair share of hot glue gun singes. I say singes because I never actually got burnt, but I definitely had some tender fingers from stray drops. That, and the carpal tunnel from cutting about a hundred pages of paper wasn't helping any. I managed to get both the arms cut out and assembled. This was so much more work than the head... The arms themselves had about 40 pages worth that needed cut out, taped, transferred to foam, cut out again, and hot glued together. My children can fit their entire bodies inside an arm. An adult can hide their entire body inside the head. Man oh man... I really should've went with a "size 9".

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Day 16: After a much needed weekend of rest and relaxation (and a great deal of cleaning the living room from 3 children so I had room), it was time to start on the biggest part. I was dreading this. I had honestly been putting the body off because I knew it was going to be huge... and nearly impossible to work with. As you can see, a single section fo body took up a LOT of foam. I saved every scrap I could, which came in very useful later for things like toes, teeth, and fingers.

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I don't really recall how much of the body i got done during this time... but the time stamps on my pictures places the upper HALF of the body around the 16th/17th.

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Days 18-21: Who's got a butt? Snorlax, that's who! I'd spent the next couple days finishing getting the entire body put together. This was the first time my wife felt like "That's a Snorlax!". I really like the picture of her trying to put the ear on him like the star on top the christmas tree. This was also the first time I deviated from the pattern. *GASP!* I know- crazy. We decided that Snorlax's face was a little too "smooshed" and that his mouth needed to be lower and bigger. His eyes got larger as well, and we cut them out.

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Part 3: How to un-skin a Snorlax or HE'S SO FLUFFY!

Day 22: It had gotten to the point that we were ready to start attaching "fur" (blankets) to the foam shell. This was October 22nd. Halloween was now about 9 days away, but everything happens on the weekend so I really only had about a week left to completely cover this guy in fur. And make feet. I hadn't made the feet yet. Problem was, I knew that I am terrible working with fabrics. My mother is a seamstress and I would put her to shame if I looked at a sewing needle. I had no clue how to get this sewn or attached to the shell, so I called up my cousin Michelle for help. She came up with the brilliant idea (that I completely overlooked) of just attaching the blankets with the hot glue gun. Total props to her on laying out the blankets and getting them cut so there's minimal seams!!! The majority of my part was to be inside Snorlax, pushing back against foam (which did nothing to insulate against the burning hot glue) so the fur could adhere.

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Days 23-25: Getting into the final stretch, I realized that I needed a material to place in the mouth-hole so that I could see out but people couldn't see in. I also realized that I needed to do something about the eyes, because there was no way I was going to be able to see out of them so there was really no reason to have cut them out... Except that there was, because I ended up using the cut out eyes as the eyes. I used an old black tshirt around them to give them a different material... because eyes aren't fuzzy like blankets, right? Because I cut them out, the eyes actually sit into the head, so it worked out great. But what about the mouth hole? Ah- yeah, I went looking for DAYS trying to find something. The best idea I got was to try and find some buckram. Only one place had it, and it was white... so that was a no go. Turns out that people can't see in unless they're putting their face right up to the mouth anyways, so we're golden. It's ridiculously hard to see out of as well. haha. The teeth are just a little bit of foam with a white t-shirt around them. That's twice now that I've used old t-shirts for materials. I'll use them again on the claws/fingers/toes.

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A minor (and much needed) distraction came from my daughter wanting a halloween costume that wasn't on the market... Bendy and the Ink Machine. Boy, did she get comments EVERYWHERE we went. Little kids were constantly pointing at her "It's Bendy! It's Bendy!!!".

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The Home Stretch:

At this point, it's all a blur. I don't know when I got what done.. All I know is I was working on it non-stop to get this done before Halloween. I had two feet left to build, cover in fur, make claws/toes, and figure out how to get Snorlax held together. We ended up attaching the head and arms with some nylon cord and clips (like on a backpack) so they just snap on/off. Internally, Snorlax is held OUT by Hot Wheels Track. It's flexible enough to move, but it's sturdy enough to hold it's shape. It was good enough for that Halloween, but it really needs replaced with something more permanent.

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End of the Road:

Well, here he is in all his glory. It's been a year now, and I'm ready to take him back out again.. but I really need a way to re-enforce his internal structure so he isn't collapsing in on himself under his own weight. I know the Black Meadow Studios' Snorlax uses an internal aluminum frame connected to a molle pack (or something similar). Any ideas? Suggestions? Comments? Feel free to let me know!

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Was eagerly awaiting you to finish the steps from over a hour ago. It looks great and certainly an imposing figure, you must have a huge garage! Shouldn't be too hard to reinforce, there's got to be quite a bit of space inside. Can only assume quite heavy with the fur added on!
 
Was eagerly awaiting you to finish the steps from over a hour ago. It looks great and certainly an imposing figure, you must have a huge garage! Shouldn't be too hard to reinforce, there's got to be quite a bit of space inside. Can only assume quite heavy with the fur added on!

Thanks for waiting! Glad I piqued someone's interest!
We actually keep him in the walk-in bedroom closet. He takes up about 90% of my side of the walk-in closet when the body isn't folded up. Otherwise it's about 50%. To transport him, we actually have to take the middle row of seats out of our van. Even then, the feet and arms have to go in the trunk.
Yeah, there's plenty of room inside for reinforcement. Two people could EASILY fit inside Snorlax, with room to spare! I'm just wondering what I can do that is light weight enough to let him keep his shape and hold him up, but also let me disassemble easily for transportation and storage. I'm leaving towards PVC piping or maybe some wooden dowel rods.
 
We actually keep him in the walk-in bedroom closet. He takes up about 90% of my side of the walk-in closet when the body isn't folded up. Otherwise it's about 50%. To transport him, we actually have to take the middle row of seats out of our van. Even then, the feet and arms have to go in the trunk.

Incredible scenes. I would pay good money to see the Snorlax in a variety of mundane situations and the reaction of people nearby.
 
Actually, look up Adam Savage's Totoro costume...............
If it hadn't already been built, I might have considered it. Alas, I'm not about to strip all that blanket fur off that foam and begin anew. Maybe if I decide to make a second, smaller one.

Incredible scenes. I would pay good money to see the Snorlax in a variety of mundane situations and the reaction of people nearby.
Yeah, if he wasn't the size of a minivan, I'd probably be more active with him. Do some crazy stuff. I wanted to take him to some costume contests, but he's ridiculously huge/hard to get places. So far, he's just attended a few Pokemon Go raids, and appeared at Halloween and a cosplay walk across Louisville's walking bridge. (I didn't make the walk across the bridge. It was 90+ degrees, and it's about 20+ degrees hotter inside Snorlax!)
 
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