Crocodile Costume - Halloween - Peter Pan

It's Halloween time again!

Since I work at the Instructables lab, my son expects a lot of creativity and DIY. Talk about pressure.... This year He wants to be the crocodile from Peter Pan, which now means I need to make 2 costumes, the crocodile for him and Captain Hook for me. I'm also planning a new ending as I don't want to end my halloween being eaten alive by a crocodile.

Ingredients:

1. one very energetic and creative child
2. large sheet of 2 inch foam
3. lots of cardboard
4. styrofoam eyes
5. lots of tape - we used a combo of Shur-tape and Scotch Duct tape to connect the head pieces and the teeth
6. green gloves from Jo-anns
7. velcro from jo'anns
8. Krylon Olive Green Spray
9. styrofoam balls
10. green pants and shirt
11. love of Peter Pan

time: 2 weekend afternoons

The First step is to sit-down for a costume discussion to plan things out...

Step 1: Time for the Sit-dwon Discussion

We've got to plan out this costume. so far, we've got some elmer's glue, an empty box of eggs - which we could use for a mouth and some styrofoam eyes which we definitely want to use.

Step 2: The Concept

Here is our design for the head. We tried an empty egg carton but it just wasn't big enough, so we had to go back to the drawing board....

Step 3: Making the Head

Luckily our friend Oren who could have been a wizard in a past life, magically appeared at our doorstep with some large cardboard boxes that he needed to recycle and we were happy to take this opportunity to upcycle. Here's what we needed 2 big pieces to form the sides and then a chin piece and a top piece. We also had to make sure that this would site on his head so that he can use his hands to eat sweets. The dimensions came out to 26x20 for the 2 big pieces, 9x6 for the chin piece and 34x6 for the top piece.

Step 4: Painting the Head

We thought we would try and paint the head pieces before we connect them then afterwards we realized that we only had blue tape and that would have to be painted as well. so we needed a better solution..

Step 5: Taping the Head Together

I really thought that this was going to be really tricky, getting cardboard to bend properly and taping it all together. Luckily, we had some Shur-tape that worked great.

Step 6: Painting - Redux

Our initial attempt at painting with kids paint just didn't work, so I sent the wife out to our local Ace to pick up something better. She came come with a can of krylon which worked like a Charm. 2 coats in no time......

Step 7: Sharp Teeth - Lookout Captain Hook

It was Jonah's favorite part, making the teeth that will soon bite his dear ole dad.....we need 4 (2 for the bottom & 2 for the top. Luckily, we had white cardboard which took out an additional step of painting.

Step 8: Crocodile Head Test

This was our first test with the head after adding the teeth and the eyes which we used with velcro. The gloves are from Jo-ann's. the head falling off, so we used velcro to connect a hoodie he was wearing to the inside top of the head that now stuck-on and he can be hands free

Step 9: We Need a Tail

The Instructables lab provided me with foam and Jason also provided me with instructions to not use spray paint which will decompose the foam....this was my original plan so we had to purchase fabric spray at Jo-anns. I also cut some grooves into the foam and shaped it. We also used velcro to connect this to his shirt.