How to make a low budget Han Solo Halloween costume

My co worker needed a last minute Halloween costume so after taking an inventory of useful items I helped him make this costume the night before Halloween- we did it in my freezing cold garage in about four hours.
It was so cold the glue would instantly solidify when it came out of the hot glue gun.....

Step 1 Materials

For the clothing you'll need some dark brown pants, a blue jacket (or blue vest- this can also be made from a blue shirt- the miltary BDU style works best), a white pull over shirt and some yellow felt. We used some old combat boots because that's what he had but some cheap rubber rainboots would work just as well.

For the blaster you'll need a couple of funnels, a few wood dowels, some 1/8" hardboard, a small diameter tube (brass or whatever), a small PVCconnector and a 1x6 wood board as well as a can of black spray paint and some glue- epoxy is best.

For the gun belt you'll need some thin aluminum sheet, some 1/8" hardboard, some rivet style snaps and some brown vinyl.

You'll also need a hot glue gun, a rivet gun and a few wood screws.

Comments

[The Rambler]

I love this. It's pretty incredible on a tight budget/schedule. Han's Bespin outfit has always been my favorite outfit of his.

I love how all of the over-eager fanboys 1. Somehow miss the "we did this in four hours the night before Halloween" and 2. Get their facts wrong because they don't realize things changed between movies. Besides, if Han Solo had various pants and jackets/vests we can assume he wore them in different combinations. To him they wouldn't be costumes, just clothes.

[Maxaxle]

Go watch Star Wars Episode 4. Then you should get a better idea of what Han Solo dresses like. No offense, this is really great and all, but I think you might be reading fan-fics or something.

What I'm whining about:
-The pant stripes are two vertical, parallel red lines running from around the back of the pocket to the bottom.
-Jacket =/= Vest. And if you need a vest, I've found the fancy shmancy kind with large buttons to be great starting material (not that I've modified mine, lol)
-Not combat boots. More like Western boots.
-Belt buckle's a little big.
-The gun should at least have a pvc pipe glued to the top (scope thingy)
[/nitpick] [/fanboy]

[Diabolik771]

The boots for Han are East German army surplus. I've done this costume before and found a new pair in the box for 20.00 at a thrift store. Lucky. There is always ebay too. Riding boots would work too.

[MiriadaTheCarrot]

Red stripes are only in Episode IV (Corellian Bloodstripes 1st class, i think)
Episode V and VI have the "Yellow Rectangles"

[Honus]

I understand your criticism- however we had to come up with a costume in less than a few hours using only what we had on hand so we had to improvise a LOT. Accuracy gets thrown out the window in this case. The blaster does have a scope- look closer.

I've been an RPF member for a long time and I know how to make a dead on accurate Solo costume. Most people don't care about that- what they want is something that can be thrown together for no money in as little time as possible.

[thepelton]

As I recall, the pants had a red stripe running down the outside, much like some military surplus pants, or even school band pants, might have.  Maybe this could give the next would-be Han Solo a few ideas for source material.  Right now its early March.  Too late for Mardi Gras, but a good six months to Halloween.  Quite enough time to do it right for a costume ball.

[KwartzKitten]

Oh man you people and your adding quick and easy costumes are life saverrrrsssss! Thank you!

[redfive1973]

Both costumes look great. Amazing to be able to do so much in a very short period of time. The test of a true costumer.

[Honus]

Thanks! Both costumes could definitely be improved but I was pretty happy with them given what we had to work with.

[ThatOtherGuyOutside]

okay first of all, since im good with star wars, if you want han solo in episode 4 then you need a (black) vest, works with military shirt like said, also the pants were Navy with the yellow stripe on the side and the boots were like civil war cavalry boots not combat,and the his gun is the broomhandle / mauser and it needs a scope on top!

[Honus]

As I have stated before, accuracy was not a great concern (in fact not at all!)- we had to use what we could find in very short time and make it work. When you only have a few hours you have to compromise. :) The blaster does have a scope in the correct position- take a closer look. All DL-44 blasters used side mount scopes. The DL-44 that was used in ANH had a side mounted long scope but there were two hero versions- the original and "Greedo Killer" version. The GK version has a different front grill and flash suppressor and a different scope mount if memory serves... The GK version was used while filming in the U.S. and the original version was used in Lndon. ESB and ROTJ both used side mounted scopes but they were of a different shorter design than that of ANH. The ROTJ blasters are easily identifiable by the pistons cast into the side of the blaster. There were also differences between the hero and stunt props. The blaster I made has a scope similar to an ESB version. I've been a RPF member since 2003 so I know how to make a screen accurate Solo costume no matter which version you prefer. There are lots of decent reference images here: http://www.padawansguide.com/han_esb.shtml

[thepelton]

In the group picture included, you show a guy dressed up as Venkman, from Ghostbusters, I suppose.  Do you have an instructable planned for that as well?

[Honus]

It's the same costume (I made both of them)- the only difference is the name tag.

[MiriadaTheCarrot]

Wow.
You have
(a) photographic memory
(b) watched the movies once too often
or
(c) both

i have: (b)
but still intend to watch them all over again :)

[MiriadaTheCarrot]

"Yellow Rectangles" = Corellian Bloodstripes 2nd class.

Amazing costume, well done :)

[travis7s]

Living here in SK, I feel your pain with the glue gun. :P

[ArtisticBabe]

That blaster is incredible, it really looks like metal, very cool. :) Maybe I'll do an instructable on how I made my Princess Leia slave costume. haha

[lebowski]

Any chance we'll see it for this coming Halloween? I'll send you an Instructables t-shirt as a bonus :)

[vulcan]

please do...my girlfriend and i will have next years costumes all planned out

[HalloweenJuNkY]

The costumes look great the funny thing is I think the guy in the Han Solo outfit would play a great Doctor Who lol

[DailyMe Intern]

This is so incredible! I love the blaster!

[modio]

Do you have any blueprints or outlines for the DL-44?

[Honus]

I was just looking for them! I'll see what I can dig up.

[Honus]

Dang- I can't find the original drawings I made. A good place to look for info is the Blaster Builder's Club: http://www.imperial-fleet.com/bbcforum/index.php

[modio]

yeah, ive been a member there for about a year or two :D

[trebuchet03]

Wow.. I really need to dig up some pictures... My bossman has one of the Han Solo blasters... If you look really close at it - all of the scratches and such to make it look used/aged were painted on with silver paint... Don't know what it was made of though - it was in an acrylic case...

[Honus]

There are some really good Solo blasters out there. It might have been made by Master Replicas. I know the Solo blasters they made were supposed to be pretty nice- and expensive. They are coming out with a large scale limited edition Millenium Falcon signed by Harrison Ford. BIG $$$$ The original Solo movie blasters were based on an old German "broomhandle" Mauser pistol. They added the scope and the flash hider and a couple of other parts- some from plastic model kits. The low budget one I made was modeled after the blaster used in The Empire Strikes Back since that's when he wore the long sleeve jacket. :P

[trebuchet03]

"I know the Solo blasters they made were supposed to be pretty nice- and expensive. " This is true ;) This guy has some amazing memorabilia and the blaster is numbered - how about a trilogy movie poster - signed by EVERY major character in episode 4-6. I found the carbonite picture... so this picture should be close by :P

[Sk8rDuck]

My mom saw alot of Star Wars props made by Master Replicas. My cousin got the Anakin and Darth Vader light sabres