Dr. Hibbert told Homer he is obese and needs to lose weight NOW! Here is Homer's path to weight loss, and running his first ever 5k race!

Step 1: Materials

*These are the total amount of materials we used for 4 COSTUMES

Head
1 10 inch cement tubing (about 48 inches long from home depot, which yields 4 helmets)
1 bag Polyester snow cover (You won't be using much, keep the rest and put it under your christmas tree!)
Car sponges (about 2 per helmet)
Screen mesh
4 poster boards (You will be using about 1 1/2 poster boards for Marge's hair)
4 Pipe cleaners (for Homer's hair)
2 10 inch strainers
1 Black paint marker

Bodies

5 Large Home Depot Boxes (18x18x24)
1 medium home depot box (18x18x16) This is for the television
1 posterboard (For the drawing of Itchy and Scratchy)

Other Materials

Duct tape
Masking or painters tape
1 Glue gun (we used 4.....2 broke and one caught on fire. It overheated and somehow caught on fire)
A LOT of glue sticks
1 Box Cutter
1 X-Acto Knife
1 8 inch strainer (For the t.v. antenna hat)
1 320-Fine grit sandpaper
12 car sponges for insulation

Spray Paint
We used Rustoleum spray paints
3 Sun Yellow (For the heads)
1 Apple Red (Bart's Body)
1 Fire Orange (For Lisa's body)
1 spa blue (Maggie's Body)
1 Brilliant Blue (Marge's hair)
1 Grape (TV)
1 Leafy green....i might be wrong (Marge's body)
3 White (I used a cheap generic brand, it was about a dollar a can)
3 Lacquers

Acrylic/Tempera Paint
I used an assortment of colors and mixed them to paint the Itchy and Scratchy cartoon.

Step 2: Building the Head

Cutting

Cut the tube into 4 pieces with a hacksaw. Since the tube is 48 inches long, it is the perfect length to make 4 helmets. Using a ruler, measure 11 inches each for 3 heads, the last piece doesn't have to be measured to 11 inches because you will using that for Bart's head. Since he has spikes, the extra length will be useful.

Smooth the edges with the sandpaper.

Eyes and mouth

Measure 5 inches from the bottom and draw a line. This will be the bottom of the eye. Using a compass or a cup (red solo cups work well) draw the eyes with a pencil. The eye is about 3 inches in diameter. And the spaces between the two eyes are about 3-4 centimeters wide. Sorry if I'm using both cm and inches, i realized I should have stuck with cm from the beginning.

If you're a shorter person you can sand the outer edges to expand the holes, that's if you the eyes don't align with yours.

Mouth

If you want a cut-out of the mouth like my previous build (Justice League) then the mouth is about 1 inch wide. The apex of the smile should measure 1.5 inches from the base of the eyes. If you don't want to cut out the mouth, you can just simply paint the mouth.

Cutting

Use the x-acto knife or box cutter and carefully pierce through the tube, while following your lines. DON'T RUSH, it's easy to make a mistake in this step.

After you have your cut pieces, you can use them as a template for the other heads.

Mesh

It's not that hard applying the mesh, before applying, spray paint the mesh white; after the paint has fully dried, draw a small circle in the center with the paint marker.

You apply the mesh from the inside, and use the hot glue to secure the mesh onto the face.

Bart's spikes

Use the longer tube. I don't have a measurement, but i simply eye balled and drew triangles around the top of the head. And cut the spikes using one of your blades.

Mesh (eyes)

Cut a square piece that is bigger than the eyes and spray paint it white. After the paint has dried, color a black dot in the center. You will be gluing the mesh from the inside.

Step 3: Marge's Head

Her head is pretty simple, take one tube and use the previous step to set up the eyes and mouth. If you don't like the regular lego mouth, you can change it by drawing/painting on different expressions.

One poster board does not wrap around the tube completely, so you have to cut another in half and tape it to the other board. Then wrap it around the outside of the tube and tape the edges. It should look like the picture. I previously painted the tube with yellow paint; I used acrylic because most of the head is covered in the polyester snow. I used the masking tape to tape the board. Don't place the board too low, measure about an inch from the top and tape.

I spray painted the board with one coat of blue, and let it dry for 20 minutes.

Hair

I thought I would need to use a lot of material, but actually a little goes a long way. Unroll the polyester, and tear pieces (about 2 feet x 1 feet). These are like patches and you just apply them to the poster board and around the head. But before that, make sure you apply glue all over the board and parts of the tube where the hair needs to be applied. I used Elmers Glue because it was cheap and easy to use. Carefully place the polyester around the tube. If it looks patchy, just stretch the fabric. It's going to take time, so be patient.

Paint

Using the blue, lightly apply several coats of paint on the polyester. You don't want to soak the fabric in paint so be careful. If you painted the face yellow previously, you might want to repaint the face yellow if any there are any visible blue streaks.

Step 4: Homer's Head

Use the previous steps for eye measurements.

Because his head is round you would need something that will give that shape and I found a strainer that is perfect for the head. I used a 10 inch strainer and applied masking tape on the strainer. After that is finish, place the strainer on top of the head and apply glue on the edges. After the glue has dried, tape the edges with masking tape.

Paint

If you drew the mouth and want to avoid paint going onto the outlines, simply add painters tape and cover the whole mouth section.

I sprayed 3-4 light coats of paint and 2 cans will last you for all the heads. If your building one, then one can will suffice. If the first coat looks rough, sand the tube using fine grit sandpaper.

I painted the mouth by mixing white, brown and a little yellow.

Pipe Cleaners

I used 3 pipe cleaners, 2 on the head and cut one in half for the sides. Just can poke a small on hole on the strainer and push the pipe cleaners in.

Step 5: Lisa

Just like Homer, use a strainer to round the top of the head.

The hard part about Lisa and Maggie are the spikes. To make spikes, cut rectangles (about 11 inches x 4 inches) from the poster boards so you can roll them up into spikes. It took several tries until we got the shape and size we needed. Use a picture of her as a guide since she has 10 spikes going around the head, then several on the back. We made 16 spikes in all. Position the spikes and use a lot of masking tape to keep them in place. Use the picture in this step as a guide.

Once the spikes have been placed, spray paint. If you want a cut out of the mouth then use the mouth from step one, or you can just draw the mouth on.

Maggie's head is similar, but i will discuss this later because she was more of a prop than a costume.

Step 6: Bodies

If you can read the sloppy diagram in the picture, then that's great!

Use one large home depot shipping box (18x18x24). It is good for one body; you can cut all 4 sides apart like in the second photo. Measure the person you are building the costume for (measure the shoulder widths). Our shoulders were approximately 13-14 inches from one end to another...could be more. Add an extra inch and that will be the width of the top part of the cardboard. Then add about 4 inches and that would be the width for the bottom part. Remember lego bodies are not rectangular. The whole length of the board should be about 2 feet and 9 inches. With the tops not folded (the dashed line in the diagram shows where the box is suppose to fold. To bottom of the box should be about hip level.

The sides are about 10.5 inches in width for the top and 12 inches at the bottom, while the length is the same. The piece is more rectangular than the front and back pieces.

Use that fold to bind the 4 pieces together.

Place brackets inside the body at the edges and corners to stabilize the box.

Head slot

Since the head is 10inches, the head slot or insert should be smaller or else it would be visible. We cut approximately 8 inches in diameter at the top of the folded box.

Paint

Depending on the character spray paint the body. Fire orange for Lisa, Apple Red for Bart, White for Homer, and leaf green for Marge

Step 7: Maggie

We turned Maggie into a prop because after all a life size Maggie seemed weird and we thought it would be cute carrying her around.

For the head, we used a plastic tub/jar. It's the same tub where you can find cheese balls or pork rinds in. In this case, it was pork rinds...mmmmmm pork rinds. We cut it in half and used the bottom piece. Like Lisa, you create cones using poster board, except since we are working on a small scale, the cones would have to be smaller. I don't have the exact measurements because my friends created it with trial and error.

Face

The whole face was drawn on and painted with acrylic paint. Then we used the black paint maker to outline the features.

Body

Creating the body was the same as it's larger counterparts. Except we used a smaller box. Maggie's body was about a quarter of the size of the normal body size. We painted it using Spa Blue spray paint and glued the head with hot glue.

Accessories

We couldn't find a red pacifier so we painted ours red. We cut the sucker part out and glued the plastic base into the face. For the bow we simply just cut a bow from a piece of poster board and painted it blue.

Arms and Hands

For the arms, we rolled up poster board and pasted to the sides of the body. We pinched the shoulder parts so it laid flat or flush to the body.

For the hands, my friend came up with an ingenious plan. We noticed that the car sponge was shaped like lego hands, so we cut the ends and trimmed it to look like the claws.

Step 8: Fitting (Heads)

A 10 inch tube is too big and wobbles without and support. This is made to fit, so you would need to cut and work with the sponge to insure a perfect fit. I placed one on the back, sides and on the forehead which helps with perspiration.

Step 9: Television and Touch Ups

Assemble one large home depot shipping box and you have your t.v. ready.

The head slot is about 8 inches in diameter just like the lego bodies, while the arm slots are about the same. It's very simple and easy to make.

To make the screen of the t.v., I painted a picture of the itchy and scratchy show onto a full poster board. Then I used one medium size shipping box and cut one side out of it and trimmed the poster board so it is about 2 inches smaller than the board on all sides. I pasted the picture , and then posted the board onto the front of the large box.

I painted 2 plastic bottle caps gray, and used them as buttons.

Antenna hat

Using a small strainer....6-8 inches in diameter, i placed wires on top and taped the ends with electric tape. It looked alike antennas to me. Secure the wire and then wrap aluminum foil around the strainer. Tape the edges to make sure the foil doesn't come out.

Touch Ups

Using the black paint marker, outline the eyes and mouths

Step 10: Finished Product

Hopefully I didn't skip a step, if i did then i will update. But in the mean time, it turned out pretty good! We completed the race in 45 minutes. It wasn't that hot because of the morning breeze, but it was hard running in the boxes because of the lack of flexibility.