I always need a contest to inspire me to post to Instructables. Well, the characters from Gravity Falls have made it into print, so I guess they can be considered characters from literature, so I can enter the Book Character Costume Challenge.

Over the years I have done three separate Gravity Falls cosplays – Dipper Pines, Robbie Valentino and finally Grunkle Stan. Stan has actually been years in the making and he finally came to fruition when I hosted a Summerween event at the library this past summer. A lot of it is store bought, but a few items required modification or creation (the devil is in the details, you know).

Supplies

COSTUME PIECES

- Fez

- Black slacks

- Tuxedo jacket

- White dress shirt

- Thick saftey glasses (or prtescription ones)

- Western tie

MATERIALS

- Scissors

- Bias tape

- Pins

- Fabric glue

- Spcialty paper - shiny gold

- Carpet tape

- Self adhesive foam

- Ribbon

- Stapler

- Hot glue gun

Step 1: Fez Modification - Trimming

I started off with a standard fez purchased at Party City. Though they fit great, they are just too tall for my taste, not resembling a fez you would see worn by lodge members.

I cut a few inches off to get me a more appropriate height.

I then coated the edge with fabric glue, covered it with double fold bias tape and then pinned it into position and waited for it to dry.

Step 2: Fez - Ornamentation

I then designed the emblem for the Fez. The emblem on Stan’s fez has changed over the years but I went with the original design that was featured in the Summerween episode. I actually started designing a version to have 3D printed and then I started over-complicating the design so I finally just scaled back. I went and bought a piece of specialty paper from an area Michael’s – a shiny gold piece of paper as thick as card stock. I printed up my design on a piece of paper, glued it onto the back of the cardstock (didn’t need to reverse it because the design could just be turned over to invert it). I then applied a piece of carpet tape to the back, unpeeled it and applied it to the fez. I then took a strip of the shiny paper, put the double stick carpet tape on it, wrapped it around a marker to make a small tube, peeled off the tape backing, and then wrapped it around the top of the tassel.

Step 3: Tie Creation

I blew up a photo of Stan’s tie, making a template of how big it would be on a human. It is much larger than a standard bow tie but I went to a store and took photos of bow ties as a reference source (gone are the days of clip on bow ties, apparently). I had bought two different widths of ribbon about a year ago specifically to make a bow tie for Stan. I had always noticed that the width of the tie and the width of the “strands” that emanated from the tie were different widths. It was a little off dimension-wise but close enough.

I figured out the length I would need for the main loop of the body of the tie. I then backed this piece of ribbon with a piece of self-adhesive foam to give the tie some body. I pinched the tie at the center and put a staple in it to hold the form.

The knot of the tie became a free-flow experiment. At first I was just going to wrap a rectangular piece around the center but it looked too square. I then cut out notches on the sides which made it more not like, but still not full enough. I built up the center of the tie by hot gluing little pieces of foam on to give it some bulk and height and then wrapped it with the center ribbon piece.

I then threaded a piece of ribbon through this for the tie part that would go around my neck (since I didn’t want to calculate the mechanics of creating a clip-on piece. I put Velcro on the pieces to attach it at the back of my neck and then hidden by the collar of the shirt.

Step 4: Human Modification

Stan has some major five o'clock shadow. My own beard has a lot of grey and my chin is absolutely snow white. So to get the dark stubble look I was going for I actually dyed my beard dark brown, and then I trimmed it down to a long stubble, giving me the look I was going for.

Step 5: Glasses

To reiterate how long I have been wanting to do a Grunkle Stan cosplay, after my last eye exam, when I was getting new glasses, I ordered one of my pairs to look like the old-school thick shop glasses that Stan wears.