The Aging Gamer: Halloween Costumes - ALL DONE!!!

2:52 PM on 10.16.2008   |   craineum

90 comments

[Editor's note: craineum's epic Halloween costumes are finally done! Check out craineum's entire process in making all three costumes and follow the links at the end of the post to find out how exactly he made the fantastic Mega Man costume. -- CTZ]

Ever since I got out of high school and into college, I realized that I should not be ashamed of the geek inside. Once this revelation hit me, there has been a desire building inside of me to create my own Halloween costumes. But there was always something that stopped me ... time, money, idea's, or just being plain lazy. I never had the right motivation. It is amazing how having kids will motivate people to do things they normally would never try.

This year was going to be the first year that I really sat down and created my costumes from scratch. My oldest son (now 3-years-old) is at a point where he can help a little and it was something we could do together. I also wanted to include our youngest son (1-year-old) in a combined/group costume. I wanted the costumes to work together as a group, and to be close to size appropriate. I couldn't come up with any idea's that I thought I could handle making. I wanted to do a Bowser/Mario/Koopa set, but that seemed like a stretch for my abilities. So I opened it up to the Awesome Destructoid Community.

There were a ton of good idea's, some that I will probably use in the following years, but the one that stuck out for me this year was from Mr Wilson. He submitted this picture along with some ideas:

This grabbed me for a couple of reasons. The Characters were the right size, they didn't seem to difficult to build, and I completely remembered watching this crappy show! So it was decided, I would be Captain N, 3-year-old would be Mega Man, 1-year-old would be Pit.

* Captain N *
Time to Build: Maybe an hour
Cost: $90

The Jacket

As I wanted something that looked good and seemed authentic, I decided to purchase a real letterman jacket and tweak it for my needs. This was the hardest item to acquire for all the costumes since it was so specific. I was watching eBay for about a month before the right size/color/price came up. I got this Jacket for $20!!! It is a real letterman jacket, made of wool and leather. It came with a big white "M" on it instead of a black "N". The "N" cost me more than the jacket ... with shipping $30. I took this to the local dry cleaner and they sewed it on for $4. It would have been way more hassle to stitch it on ourselves (since we didn't have the knowledge, and still haven't figured out how they did it so cleanly), so this was well worth it.

Light Gun

The light gun I already had, so all I did was to take it apart, and disconnect the wire (which had a plug connector inside the gun). The I bought a gun holster for a few bucks.

NES Controller Buckle

I could have made this myself, but with the work that was going into the Mega Man costume, I didn't want to overload myself. I found a site called NESBuckle.com, which had what I needed. Awesome I thought, after placing the order, I never heard anything from them. I think the site was legit, have seen so much stuff around the net about them, but seems like they may have gone defunct?!? So right now I have an open claim with PayPal trying to get my money back. Long story short ... don't buy anything from them. However, I did find the same thing on eBay for $30, Score!

The rest of the costume was easy, yellow shirt from goodwill, jeans and shoes I obviously already had.

* Pit *
Time to Build: About 2 hours
Cost: $40

This was the cheapest and easiest of the three. I got the wings at Party City for about $15 (which the little one is refusing to wear now). I modified them by cutting down the straps so they would fit on my 1-year-old. The toga (or small woman's shirt) and belt were picked up from Goodwill for about $7 for both. The belt had to be shortened to fit my 1-year-old as well. Picked up a small bow for a couple of dollars. The leather shoes we already had matched well.

* Mega Man *
Time to Build: About 40 - 50 hours
Cost: $70
Injuries: Several burns

The Helmet

This took about 15 - 20 hours. I got respect for the hot glue gun as I received several burns and blisters from it. The Cars bike helmet was $20, frisbee free. LED's/electronics were about $10. The foam/fabric was from Goodwill type places and were about $5. My only regret is that the helmet seems big on him. I would like a little bit tighter fit, but I am still very happy with the final product.

The Mega Buster

This took about 15 - 20 hours. I few less burns and blisters during this build, even though it was much more complex. The tupperware was about $15, LED's/electronics $15. When I finished this ... I was giddy. I thought it looked pretty good for my first ever costume build. All the warm comments from the Destructoid community just drove me on further.

The Boots

This was about 6 hours. By this time, I stopped burning myself (Yay!). The only additional cost here was the blue foam, which I think was a couple of dollars at Goodwill.

The Gloves

This was about 4 hours.

The Suit

My wife said she spent about 5 hours on this. Again, can't thank her enough.

When I first started this costume, I was not planning on it being this involved. But the more I got into it, the more excited I got, the deeper it took me. When I made the decision to add the LED's is when it made things more complicated (at least for me). I had to think about how I was going to mount them, where I was going to store the batteries, how I was going to get them to glow. In the end, I really think the LED's made the costume, not just for the coolness factor of it lighting up, but also all the decisions I made because of them.

When I got done with the costume, and fitted it on our son for the first time ... my wife just looked at me and started laughing. I asked her what she was laughing at, her response: "Your like a little boy Christmas morning getting ready to open all your presents, with this silly grin plastered on your face." I couldn't help it ... I was just so happy, and that described my joy perfectly. And it also worked as a cool thing for me and my son to do together. He really enjoyed helping me (even if it was simple stuff like throwing away some trash). As we were taking pictures my wife said to our son, "Move the gun up a little" to which my son replied, "No! Its a Mega Buster!" I could not have been prouder!

Then when I found out that Capcom had seen, and linked to my articles, it just made it...

Thanks Chad ... could not have said it better.

Damn ... I am going to have to start working on next years right now to top this ...

Anyways, attached are a bunch of photo's of us (and yes a lot of the Mega Man Costume, which is the one everyone wants). If you want to see how I made the Mega Man costume Follow these links:

Mega Man's Helmet
The Mega Buster
The Rest of It