DIY Hellboy Costume

My shtick is/was normally historical(ish) food, but since my brother's birthday is 3 days before Halloween, he asked me to help make him a costume as his birthday present. He wanted to be Hellboy for a costume party that he and his friends were going to, so I did my best to make the costume, and documented the process as an instructable. I'm note entirely sure it qualifies as "Epic" in the modern sense... but this instructable will certainly be Epic in the sense that it's a complicated costume with lots of props, and therefore the instructable is really REALLY long...

I should say that I'm in no way 'qualified' to do any of this stuff, and there probably are better ways to do these things, but this instructable records how I did it. As for the end result, aside from some problems with matching different colours of red, the horns being a little close together and the back-of-the-head hair having some issues saying on, I'm pretty happy with it. I'll start out with a materials list:

• 1 little brother (or other person who is willing to shave his head for the sake of a costume ;)
• 1 black t shirt
• 1 tan trench coat (yes, the one in the movie was leather, but that's way too expensive for a Halloween costume)
• 1 pair of black pants
• 1 belt
• 1 Hellboy belt buckle (my brother got his from buying a limited edition of the dvd)
• 1 (left hand) fingerless glove, or glove you don't mind cutting the fingers off
• 1 small rosary, or the beads and cross to make one
• 1 large rosary, or a large wooden cross and some beads
• Nerf gun
• matte black spray paint
• silver metallic acrylic paint
• 1/2 m leatherette/pleather/vinyl fabric (or leather, if you happen to have some lying around)
• needle & thread
• small belt (that will be cut and glued)
• hot glue
• modelling clay
• plaster
• liquid latex
• 1 (right hand) hockey glove
• 2 rolls of red duct tape
• black acrylic paint
• 1 16x24 piece of 2" foam
• 1 piece of 1 1/4" pipe insulation
• 1 coathanger
• 1 package red theatrical cream foundation makeup
• 1 small package black theatrical cream foundation makeup
• translucent face powder
• red nail polish
• 2 dollar store hair extensions
• 1 package crepe hair and spirit gum
• 1 cigar

I think that's everything. I'll try to come back and add things I forgot as I go...

Step 1 The Gun

Ok, so I know this one isn't small enough to be "Samaritan", or big enough to be "Big Baby". It's really somewhere in the middle of the two. But I was racking my brains to find a prop gun that would fit with this costume, and this is what I came up with. For this step I used:

• Nerf gun
• matte black spray paint
• silver metallic acrylic paint

First, I spray-painted it with matte black spray-paint. I of course took the foam "bullets" out for this, and I also put a bit of folded cardboard into the hole under the pull-back-part (gun terminology fail, sorry) both to hold that part open for painting and to protect the spring inside from getting paint on it. Check the image notes to see where I mean since I know I don't make sense here but I can't think of a better way to describe it.

Standard spray-painting practices apply here, make sure you do it outside or in a well ventilated area, put some newspaper (or a pizza box) down to protect the ground from getting spray-painted too, paint in short, light bursts far enough away to prevent pooling and dripping of the paint. Blah blah.

After that was dry, I took some silver acryllic paint and a makeup sponge and wiped silver over the high points of the gun. I think I maybe went a little overboard with the silver, but the end result is satisfactory. I let that dry, pulled out the cardboard bit, and the gun was finished.

Comments

[mr.incredible]

Freakin' awsome! Hellboy Rocks!

[AnachronistCook]

Thanks :)