How to Make a Marvel's "Silver Samurai" Costume

What samurai has two thumbs and uses a mutant power of a tachyon field to surround a sword and slice through virtually anything>? THIS GUY! I needed a costume for the 2012 Chicago Comic Entertainment Expo. I was looking through some old school comic cards for ideas and came across the Silver Samurai. Asian?... Armor?... Samurai?!.. Sounds like a plan!

*this costume requires sewing

* This costume is currently for sale. Feel free to message me if interested

Materials:


-High density Foam (thick foam that is typically used under weight benches, washing machines etc.. can usually find at a home depot)

-cardboard

- Bondo

-Silver fabric

-SIlver and Red Metallic spray paint

-silver string

-small buckle clips

-velcro

- old shoes

-craft foam

-Pingpong balls

-mascarade mask

-fake sword

Step 1: Clothes

Pants: (Pic 1)

1. Grab a a pair of pants and outline each leg in  the silver fabric.
2.Just follow the seams from your original pair of pants in order to get the shape correct.
3. I made two legs and then sewed everything together…(pic 1)
4. Fold the top of the pants (waistline) and sew that closed.
5. Find the middle front of your folded waistline and poke a little hole through.
6. From there, insert a shoe lace so you can make them draw string. (pic 2)


Shirt: (Pic 3)

1.Grab a long sleeve tshirt, and cut out the shape of the body, and then each arm in your silver fabric.
2. Remember to make the body and arms a little bigger, if your silver fabric is not stretchy.

* You can make the sleeves actually quite large if needed

Dickie

1. Grab some fabric and just make a bandana around your neck. you can either choose to sew it closed or tie it.

Step 2: Forearm Gauntlet

1. Familiarize yourself with the first diagram (pic 1)

2. Take your high density foam, and wrap it around your forearm. I took a piece of paper and first wrapped it around to use as a template.

3. Attach a few buckles on either side of your wrist guard. (pic 2)

4.I cut a piece of foam out to cover my hand.

5.Attach a loop of string so that it will hook over your middle finger. (pic 3)

6. I took some extra foam and put a circle on top of the forearm guard. (pic 4)

7.  Repeat steps for other arm. 

Step 3: Shins

* You are basically doing the same exact thing you did for the forearm guards.. Just on a larger scale.

1. Take your high density foam, and wrap it around your leg. I took a piece of paper and first wrapped it around to use as a template.

3. Attach a few buckles on either side of your shin guard. 

4.I cut a piece of foam out to cover my foot.

5.Attach a loop of string so that it will hook over your shoe

6. I took some extra foam and put a circle on top of the shin guard.

7.  Repeat steps for other shin

Step 4: Belt

1. Cut out a wide strip  of EVA foam that will fit around your waistline.

2. Use 5 pieces of thin craft foam, and start making the “skirt”.. it’s basically a “roofing” pattern where you just glue the foam on top of each other. (Pic 1)

*make 2 wide skirts from the front and back, and 2 thinner skirts for your hips.. 

3. From there, attach the skirt to the belt. You may need to adjust the pieces to fit into the belt, depending how large your waistline is.

4. Cut out your belt buckle, and attach it to the front.. I used pieces of velcro in various places around the belt buckle to make it functional. (pic 2)

5.Take your plastic pingpong balls and cut them in half. i found the easiest way to do this is to heat up an exacto knife and cut the balls while hot. Glue them to the belt in pairs. (pic 3)

6. Lastly, take some velcro and make a sword holder (shown in pic 2 + pic 3). i just made a hole in the belt and knotted it through the other side.

Step 5: CHEST

* its a little bit easer to make the chest with the assistance of a friend.

1. Take some scrap paper and outline your front..

*you’ll feel better wasting paper if you make a mistake, rather than wasting foam..  Make a front and back and don’t forget to factor in breathing room.

2.Once you have a foam front and back piece, take your buckles and put them on both sides of your chest piece. (pic 1)

Step 6: Shoulders

1. From here, get some foam to make the shoulders. You will cut out a trapezoid two times

*If you want some added effect, you can make grooves in the shoulders. i didnt have time, but if i did, i’d use a dremel to slice into it.

2.On the smaller end of the shoulder pieces, you will put velcro and on the other side, you will glue it directly onto the chest pieces. (pic 1 + pic 2)

3. Use a bowl and masking tape to mark off the design. Spray paint it red. (pic 3)

Step 7: Mask + Helmet: Asembly

Mask

1. I just bought a masquerade mask and cut it to the likeness of the silver samurai’s mask. (pic 1)

Helmet

1. For the crown of the helmet, check out my tutorial on how to make helmets located in my “darkseid” tutorial. (link below)

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-DCs-Darkseid-costume/

2. Once you got the “crown” of the helmet, take some cardboard and wrap it around the back of your head… it should roughly end about the corners of your eyes.

Step 8: Helmet: Bondo

1. Once the cardboard structure is made. bondo the entire thing. (pic 1)

2. Create a strip of bondo around the joint to cover up where the cardboard and crown meet.

3.i then used a dremel to cut grooves into the lower half of the helmet (pic 2)

Step 9: Helmet: Details

1.  Bondo some cardboard in the black shape below. i used 2 layers of cardboard for thickness..

2. cut out of circle out of cardboard and put a patty of bondo on it.

3. Sand it into a pendent.

5. Originally, i just glued the pieces together, but that didnt work and they kept breaking off.. so i took a nail/screw and drilled it through the front piece into the actual helmet.

6. Cover the screw hole with more bondo and smooth it over. 

Step 10: Finished!

Sword

- i just spray painted parts of my sword to make it stand out.. i didnt have enough time to get/make a light up sword, but i think that would have been really cool to add to the costume. Just some food for thought.

ENJOY !

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