This year I wanted to build costumes for my family from scratch. Since I am a Retro Gamer, I wanted to make a cool costume for my three year old. The Original Mega Man from the NES was what I had decided on. What follows are the steps that I took to create the Mega Man costume for my son. All of these steps can be sized up for an older child, or even an adult.

This costume was built as cheaply as I could make it. Many of the components came from local thrift shops like Goodwill. You should be able to find suitable materials to replicate my work.

There are a lot of steps, so I will break them up into the major components.

Step 1: Mega Man's Helmet (Materials and Tools)

I was not looking to spend alot of money, so I tried picking stuff up from the Goodwill's in the area around me. The actual helmet alluded me the longest. I decided on going to Walmart and picking up one the right size.

The first step after I got the helmet was to extend the back/ears and add details like the widow's peak to make it look more like Mega Man's. But first here is a list of Tools and Materials that I used to create the helmet:

Tools:
Hot Glue Gun
Heavy Duty Scissors
Marker
Electric Knife
Rasp
Dremel
Wire Cutters
Soldering Iron
Needle
Sewing Machine

Materials:
Bike Helmet
Frisbee
Hot Glue Sticks
Blue Foam
Red LED's
Resistors
Battery Pack
Wire
Switch
Solder
Electrical Tape
Velcro
Thread
Tupperware
Sand Paper

Step 2: Mega Man's Helmet (Cut/Shape Frisbee)

Tools:
Hot Glue Gun
Heavy Duty Scissors
Marker
Materials:
Bike Helmet
Frisbee
Hot Glue Sticks

The ear and back extensions were done with a frisbee we had laying around. I choose the frisbee since it was rather sturdy, yet flexible plastic. I laid the frisbee up against the back of the helmet to try and get a rough idea of where it needed to be cut. Marked with Sharpie, cut with heavy duty scissors. I ended up with enough left over to do the two ear covers.

The helmet has enough space between the hard platic shell and the hard foam that the cut frisbee could fit into it.

I slide the pieces in and hot glued the frisbee pieces together (after alot of trial and error shaping steps). I didn't glue it to the helmet since I wanted to reuse it later, plus the foam/plastic of the helmet was a pretty tight fit.

Step 3: Mega Man's Helmet (Forming the Helmet)

Tools:
Electric Knife
Rasp
Dremel
Materials:
Blue Foam

There are five pieces that I needed to add to the helmet to make it look like Mega Mans. The Widow's Peak, the two bumps/ridges on the top middle, and the two ear pieces. I had found these water work out things with this heavy duty blue foam on it. I used an electric knife to cut the general shapes (learned this trick from helping my wife with her projects).

I did the final shaping with a rasp, and for a little more intracite work I used a Dremel

Step 4: Mega Man's Helmet (Adding LED's)

Tools:
Drill w/small drill bit
Wire Cutters
Soldering Iron
Hot Glue Gun
Materials:
Red LED's
Resistors
Battery Pack
Wire
Switch
Solder
Electrical Tape
Hot Glue Stick

I started feeling a bit frisky... I was looking at images of Mega Man... and thought... I need LED's to make this epic. So I did a little research and found some info here on getting/using LED's. Read more there if you want to see more detailed steps. I went to Radioshack and got some Red LED's and some resistors, since I already had the rest of the supplies this wasn't that expensive.

After doing a couple of tests with the LED's to make sure I could get them to light, I started on my work.

First I marked where I wanted the lights to be in relationship to the ear pieces. Then I drilled two small holes for the LED's leads to fit through (attaching all of this to the frisbee so we can use the helmet in the future... this is getting less and less likely to happen).

I then proceeded to wire it all up. After a couple of tweaks and burns... Everything worked like a champ. It was a wiring mess, so I quickly neatened everything up and taped it down and hot glued it into place.

Step 5: Mega Man's Helmet (Skinning Things)

Tools:
Needle
Sewing Machine
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun
Materials:
Black Electrical Tape
Velcro
Thread
Glue Sticks

I bet you have been wondering how I was going to turn this Red/White Cars/Frisbee bike helmet thing into the blue Mega Man helmet. Easy, skin it all with dark blue fabric. Again, while on all my trips to the Goodwill stores and the like, I had a very long list of supplies that I needed. At one of them I happen to find light blue and dark blue cotton sheet sets. The fabric was the right color, and they both were a stretchy type of material which was exactly what I needed. If doing this again, I might spring for some metallic looking spandex, but for now this was good.

I added the widow's peak to the the helmet just with black electrical tape. I also added a couple of other blue pieces of foam to smooth out any hard corners that the fabric would bunch up in.

Next step I remove the nice padding inside the helmet that was attached by velcro (an important thing to note). I then roughly measured out what size the piece of fabric needed to be (basically a big oval). I'm sure someone with more experience would have done it differently, but I was winging it. I then started to sew some velcro pieces onto the dark blue fabric so I could attach it to the velcro that was already mounted in the helmet (how handy was that!).

I was hoping to be able to stretch the fabric smoothly over the whole helmet, but that would have required something like spandex. So I ended up putting a seam in the back. I did the seam by pulling one side tight across the helmet and marking a center line along with a cut line. After making that initial cut, I taped it down, then repeated on the other side. I took the fabric off the helmet and sewed the seam from the back. Then pulled it back over the helmet. I wrapped it tight around the frisbee part of the helmet the secured it via hot glue.

I really thought this wasn't going to be a huge deal. It turned out to be way more involved than I thought, eating up most of the time I spent on the helmet.

Step 6: Mega Man's Helmet (Attaching the Foam/Finishing)

Tools:
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun
Materials:
Glue Sticks
Tupperware
Sand Paper

Down the home stretch for the helmet... I then took some light blue fabric, and hot glued it to the foam. I tried to stretch the fabric as much as I could so to avoid any seems.

Then cut out the bottom of some tupperware containers for the ear pieces. I sanded them down to remove any words/logo's. The real reason to sand them down was to give it a frosty look making it disperse the LED light better. I then hot glued the plastic piece to the ear piece.

Back on the helmet I threaded around the led, so I could cut a hole in the fabric without worrying about it ripping apart.

Finally I hot glued these 4 pieces to the helmet, completing this stage of the build.

Step 7: Mega Man's Mega Buster (Materials and Tools)

The Mega Buster was another important part of the costume... I could have just done two gloves, but that would have not had the same effect. I liked the idea of using tupperware for the construction. We did not have much tupperware in the house, this allowed me to go get all the right sized stuff. This was a pretty cheap run to Walmart/Publix. I got different sized bowls, and a small pitcher. Most everything in this build was new, but I did use the same dark blue fabric from the helmets materials.

Here is a list of Tools and Materials for the Mega Buster.

Tools:
Saw
Utility Knife
Curved Hobby Scissors
Dremel
Drill, Drill Bits
Soldering Iron
Hot Glue Gun
Tape Measure
Scissors
Sewing machine

Materials:
Small pitcher (tappered)
One Medium Bowl
Two Small Bowls
Two Extra Small Bowls
Sand Paper
6 Yellow LED's
Bright Red LED
Wire
Solder
Switch
3 @ 10 Ohm Resistors
Battery Pack
Shrink Tube
Electrical Tape
Hot Glue Sticks
Dark Blue Fabric
Chalk
Thread

Step 8: Mega Man's Mega Buster (Form Body)

Tools:
Saw
Utility Knife
Curved Hobby Scissors
Dremel
Materials:
Small pitcher (tappered)
One Medium Bowl
Two Small Bowls
Two Extra Small Bowls
Sand Paper

The pitcher I got was lined with another container inside. I sawed off the handle (but was keeping it for something later in the build). Then I cut the liner container out of the pitcher, and the pitchers bottom off.

Since I like the stylized look of the Mega Buster, I wanted the gun tip to be a little fatter thus using the opening of the pitcher on that end. The thinner side of the pitcher went towards my sons elbow. I took one small bowl and cut the top off so that it sat flush with the cut opening on the pitcher. I then too that same small tupperware and cut the bottom off so that it hugs my sons forearm. I then took the medium sized bowl and cut out the bottom curve of it so that it would finish off the gun tip edge nicely. I cut the bottom out of that same medium bowl so the gun top could protrude through. Then I cut a small bowl to fit inside/stick out of the medium bowl thus creating the gun tip. Cut the bottom out of that small bowl to open up the barrel of the gun. Then cut the top off of extra small bowl to fit in the barrel of the gun(leaving the bottom in tack for mounting an LED!!!). The took another extra small bowl and cut off the bottom to use as a cover. See pictures below for all of these pieces.

All those steps took a really long time to cut down so they would all fit just right with each other.

I then took the pitcher and cut a rectangle into it with the dremel for the power meter (Yeah, we are going to put MORE LED's in this thing!). Dremeled down the handle that I had cut off the pitcher so that it could hold the LED's for the power meter. Finally I cut a thin piece of plastic that will be used to cover the hole for the power meter.

I then cut down a plastic pen that would fit inside the pitcher that would act as a handle for my son to hold on to. Finally, I sanded down all the rough edges and smoothed it all out.

Step 9: Mega Man's Mega Buster (LED's)

Tools:
Drill, Drill Bits
Soldering Iron
Glue Gun
Materials:
6 Yellow LED's
Bright Red LED
Wire
Solder
Switch
3 @ 10 Ohm Resistors
Battery Pack
Shrink Tube
Electrical Tape
Hot Glue Sticks

So I again used this write up as reference for creating the Mega Buster. First I cut holes in the bottom of the extra small bowl that was going to hold the bright red LED for the PEW, PEW, PEW side of things. Threaded the leads through and hot glued the LED in place.

Next I took the handle and drilled 6 sets of holes for the yellow LED's. Threaded the leads through the holes, then bent the leads off to the side. Since I was running the lights in parallel I was able to just run a bared wire along the side tying together all the positive leads (repeating for the negative leads).

Then I wired both of these up to the switch, resistors, and battery pack. Using shrink tubing to cover up all the wires.

I then used hot glue to get the LED's secured, then covered up the bare wiring with black electrical tape. I set it aside as I now had to do some sewing.

Step 10: Mega Man's Mega Buster (Skinning)

Tools:
Tape Measure
Scissors
Sewing machine
Hot Glue Gun
Materials:
Dark Blue Fabric
Chalk
Thread
Glue Sticks

I only had two simple things to skin this time. The main body of the Mega Buster, and its gun tip. For the main body I had to hot glue the medium tupperware bowl that was next to the tip of the gun to the pitcher.

I measured the body from top to bottom then the circumference at the different thickness's. I then went to cut some more blue fabric after laying out what I thought was the shape.

I should have taken into consideration the fact that the fabric could stretch, as I had to sew it about three times to get it to fit.

I hot glued the fabric to the inside of the gun tip end of the mega buster to hold it in place. I pulled the cloth tight down the body of the Mega Buster. Then I cut open the hole for the power meter and wrapped the cloth around the edge of the opening and hot glued in place.

I left the forearm end cap tupperware piece off (as I was planning on putting that on last). Because of that I didn't hot glue that side of the fabric to the body of the gun.

The gun tip was much easier and went together quick. Next up was the most complicated part... how to fit it together and get it looking good.

Step 11: Mega Man's Mega Buster (Finishing)

Tools:
Hot Glue Gun
Materials:
Glue Sticks

This was a long and complicated step. It was basically like trying to solve one of those mechanical puzzles. I had to figure out how to get everything together, while being able to glue each step along the way.

First I glued the power meter cover in place. Then the power meter. Then the fabric covered gun tip to the end of the body. Then glued the the bowl holding the led to the inside of the gun tip. Then the cover over top of the LED. Finally I glued the forearm bowl to the other side of the gun, then glued the rest of the body's fabric to the forearm bowl.

I made one mistake which isn't too noticeable on the inside of the power meter. Over all I am happy with the outcome, and here are some pictures.

Step 12: Mega Man's Boots (Materials and Tools)

All that remained between me and a beautiful Mega Man costume were the easy bits (or what I thought should be easy). These included the boots, gloves, and suit.

Since I already had the fabric, the only things we needed for this were a flat stiff type of foam. Again picked this up at Goodwill for a couple of bucks. I think it was a yoga mate or something like that. It was even dark blue, not that it mattered much as I was going to cover it anyways, but at least it was not hot pink and would show through the fabric.

More Tools and Materials:

Tools:
Tape Measure
Fine Point Marker
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun
Sewing machine

Materials:
Brown Wrapping Paper?!?
Tape
Foam
Hot Glue Sticks
Dark Blue Fabric
Chalk
Thread
Elastic band

Step 13: Mega Man's Boots (Template)

Tools:
Tape Measure
Fine Point Marker
Scissors
Materials:
Brown Wrapping Paper
Tape

This was the hardest part of the build for the boots. I had a basic idea of what I wanted, and what I would need to do that, but to get the right shapes proved to be a lot of trial and error. My idea was to build a cone for the leg part of the boot, and then a piece to cover the top of the shoe. Easier said then done.

I would cut what I think I needed out of brown paper (like they make paper grocery bags out of). Then tape it together and see if it worked. I would then recut a template based on my last one, trying to get things right. Anyways, after a few attempts at making templates out of brown paper. I ended up with these.

Step 14: Mega Man's Boots (Form Foam)

Tools:
Fine Point Marker
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun
Materials:
Foam
Hot Glue Sticks

This was easy... just copy my template onto the foam then cut.

I had originally planned to have the boots be able to velcro together, but then they would not have looked as clean. Since these boots were just going to slide up his leg before putting on the shoes I could glue everything together first. I tested hot gluing this foam. It definitely melted, but not too bad, so I decided to use it.

Step 15: Mega Man's Boots (Skinning)

Tools:
Tape Measure
Scissors
Sewing machine
Hot Glue Gun
Materials:
Dark Blue Fabric
Chalk
Thread
Glue Sticks

This is basically like the mega buster build. I used the templates to cut the fabric. Sewed it together. Attached to foam with hot glue.

Step 16:

Tools:
Hot Glue Gun
Materials:
Glue Sticks
Elastic band

Again, originally I had planned on these two pieces remaining separate, but since it was just going to slide over the leg, I attached it all together (this decision really simplified things, a lot!).

In this step I added an elastic strap that would go underneath to shoe. This elastic served two purposes: to hold the boot down on the shoe, and to make it more oval instead of circular.

I then hot glued the heck out of everything. Here is the completed results.

Step 17: Mega Man's Gloves

Tools:
Fine Point Marker
Scissors
Hot Glue Gun
Tape Measure
Sewing machine
Materials:
Foam
Hot Glue Sticks
Dark Blue Fabric
Chalk
Thread

This build was much easier. I decided to make both a left and right hand glove, in case my son got tired of carrying the Mega Buster. I started with measuring my sons forearm for length and circumference. Cut two blue pieces of foam then glued them together.

I had originally thought to just wrap a pair of gloves in the blue fabric... but the gloves were too big for my son, so I just decided to make them skin tight out of the dark blue fabric (another time saving idea). I started this by tracing my sons hands on two different pieces of fabric that were folded in half (thus only having to cut once). I then trimmed this out and sewed it together.

The tubes for the forearms were easy. Originally I was going to attach the gloves to the bracers, but decided it was not necessary (I love these time saving ideas).

Step 18: Mega Man's Suit

Tools:
Tape Measure
Scissors
Sewing machine
Materials:
Dark Blue Fabric
Light Blue Fabric
Chalk
Thread
Shirt/Pants/Underwear for templates

Yeah, so basically... I can't thank my wife enough on this part... she is awesome! I would have spent a TON of time doing these pieces, and they would not have looked half this nice! My wife had never really done anything like this before. She usually makes drapery for her interior design work. So this was a stretch for her, but I it came out Awesome!

She used my sons existing clothing as a template. I had requested that she make these fit tight to replicate the Mega Man look as close as possible. Anyways, she created the three pieces needed, shirt, pants, and underwear that went on top.