Introduction: Incredible Hulk Costume

About: I consider myself an average guy. I have a bachelors in graphic design and an associates in web design. I like tv, movies, music, video games, and anime. I do some video editing and animation as a hobby, bu…

***Update - Thank you very much for making this a featured Instructable! That is always a welcome surprise!***

My costume turned out pretty awesome this year. My brothers and I decided on an Avengers theme this year, and I chose the Hulk.

Here is the list of supplies I used:
- Green Zentai bodysuit
- Padded muscle shirt
- White t-shirt
- White/light gray sweatpants
- Clothing dye
- Face paint
- Cardboard
- Poster board
- Hot glue
- Scissors
- Green flip-flops
- A little bit of problem solving skills

Approximate cost $60-$80

Some afterthoughts - I really should have gone with the crotch-zipper option when ordering the body suit. It took me a good 5 minutes to get in and out of the costume when i needed to go to the bathroom.

Step 1: Going Green

The first step to becoming the Hulk is to make yourself green. (or I suppose you could become gray or red instead)

I did not want to paint my whole body green, so I decided to buy a green body suit. I found a Zentai body suit on Ebay for about $20. I would still be painting my face, but i figured that would not be too bad.

When it arrived, I eagerly opened my package to find out that it was not the right color! It was like a semi-pale lime green color instead of the green I wanted. After a little research, I found out that the lycra spandex material actually had a lot of cotton in it. So I fought some clothing dye to make my body suit the right color green.

The only green that i could find was really meant to tie-dye shirts. Since it was meant for a t-shirt, I bought three of them for a body suit. I bought some soda ash to get the most vibrant color possible. Then I mixed up the dye and let my body suit soak in it.

I quickly found out that I did not have enough dye to evenly cover my body suit, so I started wringing it out on top of itself. I started with any part that looked like a good color of green. By wringing out the saturated parts on top of the parts that needed more dye, it gave my body suit a nice and even color. Then I let it dry a little and gave my suit a second coat. Finally I had a body suit that was the right color green.

After that I followed the washing instructions I found for my material, which is cold water on the gentle cycle. I also dried it in the dryer on cool air with the gentle cycle.

***WARNING***
If this dye gets on your hands at all, it will be there for at least a week! My glove got a hole in one finger while wringing out the green dye. It get's on you fast and stays there. Oddly enough, the dye does not seem to affect scar tissue...

Step 2: Muscles

Now that I had a way for my body to become green, I needed a way to look huge.

I put on my padded muscle suit, and then the green body suit on top of it. That was when I realized that the spandex material squished the muscle pads completely flat!

My solution was to use the muscle suit as a template and cut out cardboard in the shape of the fake muscles. I used a thumb tack to poke holes in the shapes like how many set up a Jack-O-Lantern. Then I cut out the shapes and made sure they fit into the muscle suit. Then I applied a little bit of extra cardboard to provide some thickness to the muscles and glued it together with hot glue.

To make the muscles appear as round as possible, I glued poster board across the top of the parts. This made them appear a lot less blocky.

Step 3: Purple Pants

The purple pants was one of the easiest parts. I don't know where Bruce Banner does his shopping, but I had a hard time finding a pair of purple pants.

My solution was to buy a pair of light gray sweatpants and dye them purple. Before dying the pants, I cut them off about halfway up my shin. Then I cut and ripped them until it looked right.

After the pants were ripped up, I soaked them in the soda ash and then the purple dye. After that I followed the washing instructions that the dye recommended.

Step 4: Torn Shirt

I decided to go with the live-action torn shirt Hulk. That way I didn't feel as naked. Also it provided a barrier between the green suit and the green face paint. I knew I would not be able to exactly match the suit's color, so the barrier would prevent the two different colors from meeting.

The torn shirt was pretty easy too. I bought a white t-shirt and cut the front image off. Then I ripped and cut off parts of the shirt until it looked right.

I made sure to make the arm holes larger, but left enough to still count as a shirt. It was a little difficult to put on after I was done, but it looked pretty good.

Sorry for the lack of process photos with the shirt. It is pretty much the same concept used on the ripped pants though.

Step 5: Makeup

The face paint was pretty straight forward. I mixed a lot of green and yellow with a little bit of white to get the color as close as I could get to the body suit's color.

Then when the color was as good as I could get, I applied it to my face. I tried to be careful around my eyes, but I still did get some in them. And trust me, it burns after a while. It also apparently takes about two days for all the tiny bits of paint to work their way out of your eyes.

Other than that, the face paint was not too bad. I used a cream-based kind, so once it dried a little it did not feel too gross. I've used the grease type before and that felt gross all night.

Step 6: Finished

After I put it all together it looked great!

As I was putting it all on, I began with the face paint. Then when it dried a little, I put on the muscles and the green suit. For a second there, I looked like a really buff Grinch-like character. After that I put on the shirt and pants.

It was really the pants that made the costume work. After putting on the purple pants, that really made me look like the Hulk.

To allow me to walk around without destroying the feet of my body suit, I bought some green flip-flops to wear. They were a lot darker than my body suit, but it was not anything to worry about, because most people don't really look at your feet anyway.

In this final picture, I show the whole group. My brothers were Spider-Man and Captain America. Cap's girlfriend dressed as Ms. Marvel. It was a fun Halloween!

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