How to Make a TMNT: "Splinter" Costume

by SpicyPandaCreations

63K168

Intro: How to Make a TMNT: "Splinter" Costume

I originally made a Shredder costume one Halloween. it was eventually passed onto my bestie who was a better Shredder than I, so i thought why not make Splinter to match him?!

*This is a very very warm costume. Make sure you are either in an open area, or have lots of water handy. 
*Need someone to sew this together. 

Materials:

-Cardboard

-fake nails

-brown faux fur

-grey faux fur

-heavy wire

-dark leather-like material (for tail)

-Thick foam

-brown gloves

-duct tape

-masking tape

-brown socks

-maroon bathrobe

-light brown fabric

-clay

-plastic fairy ears

-fishing wire

-white plastic mesh

-thick wooden stick

STEP 1: Legs

Pants
  1. Grab a pair of pants that you own and make an outline a few inches bigger on the brown fabric.
  2. sew together to make a pair of pants. (pic A)..(pic 1 + pic 2)

Tail hole + waist line
  1. on the backside, cut a slit in the back for the tail to fit through. (B)
  2. . Fold the top of your pants at the waistline, and insert a shoelace so you can have a drawstring.  (pic 3 + pic 4)

STEP 2: Tail

  1. Cut your dark leather and sew into a thin LONG tube. (pic E), depending how long you want your tail. (pic 1)
  2. Take your foam and cut it into a fairly thick strips. Cut enough for the length of your tail. 
  3. take your heavy guage wire and stick it through the all the foam strips. (pic F)(Pic 2)
  4. Once in, stick the wire/foam combo in the leather tail. Take a strip and make a loop at the top of the tail for your belt to go through (pic 3)
  5. Then, take a strip of fur and put it at the top of the tail. (pic 4)
  6. 4The tail should now fit in the pants hole. (Pic 5)

STEP 3: Chest

Cut a “bib” out of the fur. it will go underneath your robe. i just tied it behind my neck. If you want to be fancy, you can put velcro, a button, or just a plain and simple safety pin.

STEP 4: Robe

1. I found this maroon robe in a discount clothing store. i took the sleeves  and shortened them a bit.

2. I had some spare light brown fabric i put on either side of the robe for his little insignias.

3. Got some black fabric to make a belt.

STEP 5: Arms + Hands

Arms

1. Using the fur, cut and sew two arm warmers. They are basically long tubes. 

Hands
  1.  Take your gloves and cut in-between each finger. This will lengthen the fingers for your rat hands.
  2.  Take some cotton and stuff each finger
  3. Take your fake fingernails and paint them a light brownish.
  4.  Glue the nails to the fingers.

STEP 6: Cane

A tree branch had fallen outside my house, so i cut it down and skinned it.

STEP 7: Feet

  1. Take some foam and make a foot. and several toes. (Pic 1)
  2. Glue foam toes to foot.
  3. Glue cardboard underneath foot.
  4. Duct tape entire foam foot.
  5. Hot Glue the fur onto the entire foot.
  6. Take painted nails and glue them on the toes.
  7. Take leather and glue to the bottom of foot (pic 3)
  8. Put on brown socks prior to sticking your shoe inside fur foot.
  9. Masking tape around the foot to hide your shoe.

STEP 8: HEAD: Skeleton (part 1)

1. First, make a band around your head using cardboard

2.take another piece of cardboard, cut out the eyes, and attach to the headband

3. take another strip of cardboard and start shaping the snout.

4. Take some foam and fill out the snout, jaw, and eyebrows.

STEP 9: Head:Fur (part 2)

5. take a rectangle of brown fur, invert it so that the fur is on the inside, fold it in half, and sew along the dotted line, (pic 1)

6. Cut off the extra and turn it right side out. It should be in the shape of a hood now. 

7. duct tape the entire foam face so that the fur will glue onto the face. I used grey fur for the half the snout, bottom jaw, goatee, and eyebrows.

8. Glue the hood to the face. (pic 2 + pic 3)

STEP 10: Head:Details (part 3)

Add your details:

Nose
I made a fake nose out of clay and baked it. 

Ears
Just glue your rubber ears on the hood and cover the backsides of the ears with fur.

Teeth
. Make teeth out of cardboard which is covered with white poster board.

Eyes
take your wire mesh, and color in  in the eyes with a marker

Whiskers
i took fishing wire, glued them to needles, and stuck them into the snout for whiskers

STEP 11: Finished

Take plenty of pictures!

*its okay to slouch, as Splinter was supposed to be kinda old.


Usually you can find a few turtles, a shredder, or even a casey jones. If you want a Shredder, here is the link of the costume (Link below)

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-TMNT-Shredder-costume/

If you would like to check out more of my art work outside of Instructables, feel free to check out Spicy Panda Creations on facebook.

5 Comments

SpicyPandaCreations 8 years ago

i think it all depends on the type of fur you get and the rest of your resources.. So after years now of doing this, i realized that i can get free foam from bedding stores (which saves a lot of money).. the rest of the cost would probably depend on the fur.. so in all actuality, if i had to make this costume again, i could probably do it under $45

laurenVM76 9 years ago

Today is Halloween and we just came back from an awesome night with 4 TMNTs and 1 unbelievable SPLINTER! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for these easy-to-follow and easy-to-do instructions! Splinter stole the show!!! All in all, this project took me about 6 weeks and cost about $150 but was totally worth it. Anyone with the basic ability to sew, glue, measure and do arts-n-crafts can make this costume. Once I get the pictures I will post. But this was a super project that made my son, the parade, and the neighborhood very thrilled!

scotton2 10 years ago

I totally want to do this one next! You're so talented dude!

Gregbot 10 years ago

excellent! Thanks!