We loved The Lego Movie and wanted to recreate some of our favorite characters. The costumes took a LONG time to create (about 70 hours), but the reactions were priceless.

Step 1: Supplies

Supplies:

- Cardboard boxes

- Packing tape

- Styrofoam

- Spray Paint

- Acrylic Paint (house paint or craft paint were both used)

- Paint brushes

- Sanding materials (for the styrofoam)

- Sonotubes (from a hardward store)

- Cutting tools (for cutting cardboard)

Step 2: Scaling the Legos

This step was time consuming because we wanted them to look like real legos. I found several images online of actual lego dimensions and scaled them to my body height. I drew out the different sections of the legos we were going to make and determined the sizes from there.

The problem came when we didn't have boxes the sizes we needed, so some dimensions were augmented to fit the boxes.

Step 3: Making the Lego Body/legs

Once the dimensions were established, I used a box cutter and cut cardboard boxes to size. I started with one costume and made the body and legs to see if it would work.

I cut one box and used the long sides for the front and back of the body, then used three more ends for the sides and top. I used bowls and dinner plates to draw around for the head and arm openings.

We taped all the edges and made sure the tape was smooth -- smooth tape = better painted result.

Then we put kilz on each box and then spray painted the desired color.

Once the base coat dry, I kept a photo of the character on my computer up and hand painted each design without a pattern. It made it more interesting that way! The only character I used extra help was with batman, where I cut out the batman logo with my Silhouette and then traced around it and painted it.

The legs were the same process, free handing a pattern, cutting the cardboard, and taping them up. We painted the kilz first and then spray painted them their respective colors.

Step 4: Making the Lego Heads/hair

We bought sonotubes from Home Depot and cut each tube to size for each head. For the adults, we purchased the 12" tube, and for the kids we used the 10" tube.

We put kilz on the sonotubes and then spray painted each the Lego yellow. (**read next step first)

To put the curve in at the neck, we used foam and a small piece of the 10" sonotube and put putty and spackling to smooth the edges. Then sanded the area down and repainted. (It would've been easier to curve the neck and then sand and paint!)

I pulled up different faces of each character on the internet and tried to find a face that had their mouth open enough so we would have a place to look out. I then free handed each face using a pencil and cut open where the mouth would be. I then hand painted each face and put in see-through fabric to cover the hole.

The hair, helmet, and batman mask were thanks to my brother, who happens to work where there is plenty of large pieces of styrofoam available. He rough cut the pieces and we then went about sanding them smooth (this makes an incredible mess, and we might have styrofoam in our house forever!). We also sanded the ridges into the hair to make them more like the movie characters.

We then hand painted the styrofoam and viola!