Thread: Giant Mech/Robot Stilted Costume. Help/Tips/Ideas

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Halloween 2011 is over.. Had maybe a month to put together the costume and it turned out great. But I might want to throw in a whole year's worth of work into next year's costume. I was thinking something along the lines of a Mech. Of course, Mechs are not small. So, If you haven't guessed already. It's going to be on stilts. Hopefully November and December will be the brainstorming months and the rest of the year will be putting it into action. I'm thinking something that kind of resembles something like this.



Some problems that it looks like I would run into is Weight, and size.. Can't make it too heavy with the stilts, Otherwise I'll be a statue.. And can't make any of the parts too big or else I will, Again, Become a statue. Can't move in stilts if you can't even move your own legs.

This project is definitely too much for me to come up and research all on my own. So I needed to ask help for it. I have no idea where to begin with even what to make the parts of the costume out of. Cardboard? perhaps make molds of the parts and cast it in something lightweight? But there are a few things I thought I should include into this costume..

Lights, Sounds and Fog. To bring life to the costume.. Lights to maybe help the mech Light it's way through dark areas, Sounds so it doesn't sound like it's in a silent film. And fog, From a mini fog machine with a hose attached to the front to bring that fog to the barrel of a gun on the mech.

And of course you can't have tiny human arms in this giant robot costume. So, I was watching a few vids and saw a few articles online about Exoskeletons.

If I could do something like that, and hide the part that looks like a backpack into something like a hull out of PVC pipes and things like that. It would give the mech much bigger arms than a tiny humans arms.

I know with a costume this big it wouldn't be a great idea to move around too much. so it would mainly be something for costume contests and pictures more than a costume to terrorize the neighborhood for all their candy!

I'd like to hear what everyone else has to say and hear their ideas, or even if this is even possible. I'll try to make a cheap 3D model of the "hull" of the costume. (even though I can't model worth anything. But hopefully I can get a basic shape.) Hopefully I didn't bore anyone with my wall of text that probably didn't make too much sense. Let me know what you think.

I would think you would start with a set of digitigrade stilts, so that the legs/joints there have the correct shape. There are many videos on youtube about making these stilts, here's one on sizing them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEaht..._order&list=UL
As far as general construction, I would reccommend shaping everything with a light framework, covering the framework with foam and carboard, and then to bring everything together, I would probably cover all of it with either fiberglass, paper mache, or liquid latex. I myself LOVE what a stilt costume can achieve, ALWAYS a crowd pleaser!