Creations
Halloween 2003: Beaker Costume
One of my favorite web sites on the internet is Cockeyed.com and the guy who runs the site, Rob Cockerham, is an extremely clever, handy, and creative guy. He makes things with his hands, and I think that’s just wonderful. He also goes all out for Halloween every year. So, I decided I would make my own costume for 2003. It turned out costing a little over $30 for the Beaker head, I already owned the clothing, and I borrowed a lab coat from Eric’s father, who’s a lung surgeon or something.
The night before Halloween, my parents had a big party and I’ve provided some pictures along with this article. Believe it or not, that’s my grandfather in that giant chef’s costume.
Anyway, the night OF Halloween, my friend James and I went down to Mill Ave. down by Arizona State University and walked around in the streets with all the other Hallowackos. We took James’s MG, with the top back (of course), and cruised up and down Mill a couple of times. People were screaming, taking photos, videos, cheering… it was amazing. I wish I had more pictures. After we finished driving, we decided to walk on the sidewalk up and down Mill and meet with the other crazies. There must have been close to thirty people who asked for photos with me. It was great.
Best. Halloween. Ever.
For those interested, here’s how I made it:
I went to Jo-Ann crafts, bought a couple of yards of 1/2” foam, a couple of 3” styrofoam spheres, an egg-shaped styrofoam ball, some craft glue, a bunch of heavy-duty safety pins, and some little black pom-poms. Then, I went to Michael’s and bought the paints I needed. I think I got “Almond”-colored spraypaint for the foam and some “Apple”-colored acrylic paint for the nose. Then, I went to this place called “Spirit” for Halloween goodies. That’s where I found the neon orange wig. I also had some string, nails, and a hammer laying around in my room.
I figured that a cylinder with a ~14” diameter would be sufficient for my head to fit inside comfortably without looking too ridiculous. So, I did some simple calculations (circumference = 2*pi*radius), cut the foam to the appropriate length, rolled the foam end to end to make a cylinder, put a ton of glue on the edges, and tied some string around the foam to keep it in the cylinder form. While I was waiting for the glue to dry, I measured the diameter of the hole in the top of the cylinder so I could make a base platform to close the top of the cylinder and attach the wig to using the safety pins.
Originally, I had planned on using some sort of gel to get the hair spiked like Beaker’s hair actually is, but that doesn’t work too well on a wig because the hair on wigs is non-porous and the gel has nothing to cling on to. So, that didn’t work. Hence the shaggy, Beatles-esque hair you see in the photo.
I let the glue dry overnight with the string holding it all together. The next day, I spraypainted the outside of the cylinder with the almond spraypaint and let it dry. Then, I used the apple paint to paint the egg-shaped foam ball. As it was drying, I used nails to stick the pom-poms onto the bigger foam spheres. When the paint dried, I used the craft glue to glue the eyes to the nose and used a dry-erase marker to keep the eyes propped up above the nose. Fun. It was looking really good at this point.
When everything was dried, I used nails to attach the facial elements to the foam cylinder. I used a pencil to draw his frown into the foam and used scissors to cut it out. I also used scissors to cut the shoulder-space into the bottom of the cylinders. This took a few different tries because I had to keep trying the head on in order to see properly through the mouth. Even when I got it to look right, it was still REALLY difficult to see through the mouth!
Phew! Hopefully that wasn’t too boring. I’ll try to add some images to this article in order to visually show what I’m talking about. That way, it’ll be a lot less confusing.