Introduction: How to Make a Low Budget Han Solo Halloween Costume

By Making to learn
About: I'm a former bicycle industry designer turned professional jeweler. I like working with my hands and am happiest when I'm in the shop building my creations. If you need help with your project just let me know!

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.

Step 2: Clothing

All that really needs to be done here is to cut a small vertical slit in the white shirt (unless it already has one) and cut the yellow felt into small rectangles and glue them onto the sides of the pant legs with ta hot glue gun. Clothing done!

Step 3: Blaster

To make the blaster first cut the outline of the gun shape from the piece of 1x6 wood. Then carve the relieved areas around the trigger and grip with a dremel. Now make the gun barrel from a wood dowel and glue it on top of the gun body. Now cut two pieces of 1/8" hardboard and glue them on each side of the barrel on top of the gun body. Glue the PVC coupling on the end of the gun barrel and glue a cut section from a funnel on the other end of the coupling.

Now make the scope from a couple of wood dowels and another funnel section an glue a small diameter tube onto the end of the scope. Make the scope bracket from a piece of 1/8" hardboard and a dowel and secure it to the blaster with three screws. Paint it black!

Step 4: Making the Belt/holster

First make the buckles from thin aluminum sheet and glue some hardboard to the back of the buckles. One buckle gets three screws in it as shown- this is the front buckle. The second buckle get three screws- two of them go directly through the belt- this is the back buckle.

Make the belt from vinyl. Now make the belt ends (three of them) from thin aluminum sheet as shown. They are designed to slide over the screws. These get riveted onto the ends of the belt and holster.

To make the holster lay the blaster down and cut the vinyl around it to get the shape right and then glue it together with the hot glue gun. Now rivet on the belt ends. Make a leg strap and a holster strap from vinyl and put snaps on them.

Connect everything together by slipping the belt ends onto the buckles- that's it! There are some pouches that are on the movie belt as well as a "droid caller" but I left those off in the interest of time and cost.