This year my family dressed up as the Teen Titans for Halloween. We went with the style from Teen Titans Go rather than the original since it was a little more light and simple. I was in charge of the vast majority of all the costumes. It was a lot of work and a race against time to get it all together but it got done in time.

My oldest son Zander went as Robin. This costume is pretty simple except the blasted boots.

Step 1: The Shirt and Gloves

I'm pretty sure you can just buy a shirt that has Robin's design on it, but I made his.

I used a white sleeveless shirt and dyed it red.

Then I free handed the design and painted it in with puff paint.

For the green sleeves, we dyed a plain white T-shirt green and he wore it under the red one.

Same with the gloves. I bought a pair of white gloves and dyed them green. I think they were actually princess gloves. They were the only ones I could find that were long.

Step 2: Cape

I had a really hard time finding a cape cheap. I found a plain black one with a hood on WISH for about $4.

Robin's cape is yellow on the inside. At first I tried to paint that side of the cape with yellow fabric spray paint. Yea..... that was a failure. Then I had to wash it and I think I even soaked it in black dye to get the bits of yellow out.

I ended up buying yellow fabric and sewing it in on. It was a pain to line up but it turned out workable.

Step 3: Belt

You can get a large sheet of foam at the craft store for less than a dollar. I traced a bottle to get the circle and found a smaller circle to trace for the inner circle. I free handed the rest with the help of a ruler.

Draw it with the circle centered on the foam and extend the sides all the way to the edge of the foam.

Cut it out.

Use it to mark another strip of the same width and cut it out too.

Use super glue to glue one end of each strip together to make one long strip.

Wrap it around the wearer and mark it, leaving about an inch or so overlap.

Cut off excess.

Use sticky back velcro to attach. **The velcro doesn't stay very well on the foam. You can sew it to a strip of nylon webbing and then glue that on the foam to help

I recommend out lining the belt with sharpie. It makes it pop and looks much better.

Also be gentle with the belt, its pretty easy to rip where the circle meets the sides. Both my boys broke theirs.

Step 4: Patterns for the Boots

The boots have 3 foam pieces. I used anti fatigue floor mats from Harbor Freight. They were on sale for $10 for a back of 4. I used Super Glue to adhere my pieces together but the seams are horrible with this stuff. I learned from some great youtube videos that you should use Barg's contact cement, but it was rather expensive and not sold locally. I didn't have time to order and wait for the shipping.

A piece that wraps all the way around the shoe

Just a strip about 2 inches wide or so.

A piece that serves as the toe/top of the boot

I had made a Packaging tape model and pattern for the shoe of our Cyborg costume. The shape was pretty much the same as what I needed for Robin's toe/top piece so I used that pattern and just cut it down a bit. Unfortunately, I cannot find my pattern. It isn't with the rest of them. If I ever find it, I will add it here.

A piece that adds detail to the front of the boot.

I free handed the pattern for this piece. This is the photo shown here.

For great tutorials and information on working with foam, watch videos on the Punished Props Channel and the Evil Ted Smith Channel

Step 5: Piece 1

Just cut a few strips about 2 inches wide or so.

Glue the ends of 2 strips together.

Wrap the strip around the shoe like in the photo.

Mark where the end of the strip meets the beginning.

Cut the excess off and glue the ends together.

I did not stick this to the shoe itself. The shoe is removeable.

Step 6: Piece 2

This is the one I lost the pattern for.

Basically, I took his shoe and built up the toe and top area of the shoe with balled up tin foil (on top of the shoe) and masking tape until I got the shape I wanted.

Then cover it in seran wrap.

Then cover that in strips of tape. I used duck tape.

When you have the thing covered in tape draw a line down the center with a sharpie. Then make registrations marks. This is just several short lines through the center line that will help you line it up later.

Find the high point and draw a line from the bottom of the shape to the high point. Add registration marks. I had 2 of these on mine.

You only need to worry about doing this for one half of the shape. It is symmetrical so we will just use one half of the pattern.

Once you have this, carefully cut the pattern off the form. Cut on the lines you made and cut the registrations lines out. Cut them about the width of the sharpie line.

Lay out the pattern flat and trace it on a piece of poster board.

Cut it out and dont forget to cut the registration lines. Label one side A and the other B

Trace the pattern on the foam. Flip it and trace the other side on the foam. Do this twice. You should have 2 As and 2 Bs. Your mom would be proud. :p

Cut the foam pieces out. Do NOT cut the registrations lines this time.

Use a heat gun to heat up the foam and then bend it to get a curve.

Starting with one piece, carefully align the registration marks and glue.

When each piece has been shaped and the cuts glued, Its time to put them together.

Align and glue a part A to a Part B. Repeat with the other set.

To get the little turn down at the top of the form, turn it over to see the underside. Draw an arch. Cut a wedge out on the line you drew. Cut one side of the line at an angle and then at the opposite angle on the other side of the line. This will make a triangle wedge you can remove. Remove the wedge. Put glue in the crevice and press together. This will make the foam angle down like in the photos.

For clarification and visuals and much better explanations watch this awesome video I watched to help me(the second half):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLRnyhjPWfw

Step 7: Assemble

Glue the 2nd foam piece to the 1st foam piece around the shoe as seen in the photos.

The 3rd piece of foam is made from the pattern you saw before. Just traced on the foam and the foam is shaped to have a little bend. This piece then adheres to the front of the boot. I forgot to get a photo of this part. You can see what I mean in the last picture here though.

When you have the boots put together, its time to paint them. I used a metallic silver

Step 8: Adding the Fabric

I bought some black fabric at Joann's

This is part is the hardest and most frustrating.

I used straight pins to pin the fabric along the foam on the inside of the boot to make sure I have enough.

Then cut off the excess at the overlap

Then cut the height down to the size I needed.

Unpin it and sew the sides to make a tube.

Now summon up ALL of your patience to pin that sucker back on. It is a super pain!

To attach it, I tried several things and they all came undone in places as it was used.

First I tried super glue. The glue goes through the fabric and gets your hands, so the fabric sticks to you instead of the foam. I use a piece of plastic to press the fabric down.

This wasn't enough to hold it so I added staples. At first I just put one line of staples. Not enough. So I COVERED that mess in staples. As I said, it still managed to come loose. It made it through the season, but a better solution is needed if we ever plan to do this again.

Step 9: Adjustable Top

Now we need the top of the boot to stay put on the leg. It slides down easily.

To fix this I sewed a channel for elastic.

First put the boot on the wearer and gather in all the excess fabric to hug the calf. There is alot of extra. Pin it and take it off.

Fold over the top like you do to roll your sleeve.

Run elastic under the fold over. and pin the bottom of the fold to keep the elastic from slipping out.

When you get back around, cut a slit in the fabric on the inside to pull the end of the elastic through. Make it so about an inch of elastic sticks through. Cut off any excess.

Sew the channel closed. Be careful not to sew through the elastic.

Sew a button a little ways from the elastic sticking through(see photos). Again be careful not to sew through the elastic.

Cut small horizontal slits in the elastic just like the elastic in adjustable shorts they make for kids. This when you stretch the elastic out, the slit will stretch bigger and you can put the button through. This will tighten the boot.

***NOTE*** Zander had a really hard time walking with these. They didn't stay down around his shoe like I thought they would. I added straps across the bottom with super glue and staples to help keep them on.

This failed. The straps came undone quickly.

So I traced the bottom of the boots on foam and cut it out and glued the foam to the bottom of the boot, making is completely enclosed. I thought he could just wear them as shoes and not used his shoes in them.

That didn't work either. This made the boots way to big since they were made around his shoes. He couldn't walk in them very well.

So I stretched open the elastic at the top and shoved his shoe inside. He then put his foot in the shoe inside the boot. This worked the best. It lasted the longest, but still ended up breaking. The bottoms started to come undone.

I would recommend to use an old pair of throw away shoes and attach the boot build directly to the shoe.