Kids Predator Costume

This is a kids sized predator costume to go with the Alien Xenomorph costume we did earlier. Unfortunately I did not make the Rubber Predator mask, my brother has already given me grief over it, but with time running out and no good supply of liquid latex handy I turned to one of the better pre-made masks that I found online. This did push the cost of the costume way over what the Alien cost but I think it would have cost almost as much with a latex build up mask. Cant always do it for cheap I guess. I did have to modify the Predator mask to make it fit my sons head and make it look better than the original version. Most of this costume is made from cardboard, hot glue and cast off junk, so in that way it matches my earlier effort quite well.

They were a Hit at the Halloween party we went to.

Step 1: Making the Bodysuit

To start with I had to wait around a bit till the used costumes started showing up at the thrift stores. Pretty quickly I found a soldier bodysuit with some padded muscles that would work. All I had to do was paint it.Several coats of tan and brown spray paint got the colors close.. a little flat black for shading. the body suit is not as shiny as the mask but that's the problem with a commercial mask.
Cut a couple of small triangles out of a piece of cardboard and use that as a stencil to put the pattern on the outer edges. I used a little brown and black spray paint. I don't have an airbrush so this is all spray cans. A little glue on the seams can hide the stitching.. I used Plumbers goop. One of the distinctive things about most of the Predators is the netting on the body. We used some plastic strawberry netting that I got for free from a relative. Stitching this to the body suit was very time consuming but we felt this would last better than gluing it on.

Step 2: Belt and Loincloth.

I lucked out for this one.. we got this costume belt at the thrift store for a dollar. It needed the front and rear loin cloth and the hip guards to be perfect. The cloth is from a brown pair of thrift store pants and the hip guards are layered cardboard hot glued together. The glue wouldn't stick to the belt so we ended up stitching these on too. A little hammered silver and hammered bronze paint and we are looking good. My wife helped me out with the stitching... Thanks Jennie!

Step 3: The Mask

The Mask came in the mail, and while it looked pretty good it was way too big and had no dreadlocks but a couple of hokey looking ones on each side. I ended up cutting about one full foot of rubber off of the back side of the mask and attaching two Velcro straps to the back of the mask to tighten it up. The mask also did not fit very well on his head. There is a lot of room in that predator dome to fill.. the mask just came with a couple of small pieces of foam in there. I removed the foam and glued in a cut down bicycle helmet. it gives a better fit and fills out the head. I ended up using the foam to fill in around the eyes on the inside of the mask. The dreadlocks are forty, one foot pieces of foam rod insulation. they come in twenty foot rolls so ended up using two rolls. The ends need to be tapered a bit.. the foam cuts easy enough with a scissors. Then the whole mess painted black. I made the bands out of a bag of ten 1/2 copper pipe couplings. I used a tubing cutter to cut them in half and put two apiece on ten of the front dreadlocks. The whole works was then hot glued to the mask.

Step 4: Arm, Leg, and Shoulder Armor.

The arm leg and shoulder armor is all cardboard. Just get some kind of model and start cutting and shaping. I had a couple of Predator toys to give me inspiration. Multiple layers work great, just make sure you add some hot glue to the edges to fill up the corrugations otherwise it will not look very good. I used Some thinner cardboard to make patterns and fill some edges. The left shoulder piece is a plastic armor piece my wife got for 50 cents. A little hammered paint and it looks just right. It also covers up the Velcro strap that lets him get the armor on. There are two brown cloth straps on the shoulder armor one goes around his right side and the other Velcros to his belt to keep the weight of the back cannon from pulling the armor to the back. The arm blades are cut out of an old Rubbermade tote lid.. two pieces per blade to keep them stiff.

Step 5: Bio Helmet.

The Biohelmet was one of the tougher parts to make and unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the in between steps, so I'll just try to describe it as best as I can. You need to use thinner cardboard so you can flex and shape it easier than the thick stuff. the top piece is an oval about 10" by 12". I cut an one inch slit on each side so I could bend and overlap the sides to get a slight bowl shape. I then made the piece that goes over the eyes. glue that on then make a rectangle about 5" by 6". Bend the side edges inward about 3/4" and glue it to the brow piece. Then cut two curves for the cheek pieces. make them long enough on top to reach your top bowl piece. Glue them, in place. You should have a start of a Biohelmet. It takes several more filler pieces to get the layering on the cheeks and forehead. The targeting laser is just a cheap three LED flashlight from the dollar store. with a red plastic lens over it. The paint is Hammered bronze metallic with sliver over the top. I also got a dollar store pair of amber sunglasses.. took the lenses out and glued them inside the helmet, for that shiny look. the extra space around the eyes was blacked out with electrical tape on the inside. I used two small Velcro tabs on the top of the mask to keep the helmet in place.

Step 6: Feet and Hands.

for the Predators feet I took some of the left over foam from inside the mask and cut out ten round toes. Taper the back side sharply and glue them onto an old pair of shoes. more hot glue for filler, some cut down press on nails, paint, and viola.... Predator feet! The hands are just Painted up batting gloves with a little hot glue and more press on fingernail claws.
One Predator ready to hunt the Alien Xenomorph!