Skylanders Tree Rex Costume

My son is really into Skylanders and this year he wanted to dress up as one of the Giants characters named tree Rex. Looking around on the internet there wasn't much to chose from. There were options at the Walmart and Target but I really didn't like the quality of the costume and it seems that profiteers have gotten wind that these were going to be popular and they bought them all up and have been listing them on eBay for twice the MSRP. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the free market and a little bit of capitalism but taking advantage of parents that want to buy their snowflakes these costumes is kinda low.

Once again, I forgot to take step by step photos but I'll do my best to explain what I did step by step and give you a list of materials and prices.

Material:

Thin EVA foam sheets (brown, green, red, blue and black) - $10
1/2" thick EVA foam anti-fatigue mats (had these on hand) - $10
Hot glue and hot glue gun - $5
small roll of velcro $3
Black and brown sharpie - $3
Blue LED tealights - $2

Total: $33

Time: about 8 hours or the course of 2 or 3 weeks

First, the idea here is to kinda try and picture how you want things to look. Normally I'll sketch something up but since we had the figure I just kinda went with it and flew by the seat of my pants. (I do that in life quite often) I have posted a picture of the figure, I think it came from McDonalds (The fast food place)

The parts: mask/helmet, chest and back piece and two leg covers. We were going to make the hands but a company called Megablocks made these fists (see link below) They're kind like hulk fist. My son really wanted these and they looked pretty cool. They were $19.99 from amazon.

I started working on the mask/helmet first the idea was to just get a basic looking helmet and then I would do the finer detail from thin EVA foam sheets. The base of everything was built from EVA foam anti-fatigue mats(see link below). I have tons laying around my garage. Once I had the basics for the structure of the helmet I started gluing the features on the mask. Once again I wish I had taken step by step pictures. I have never worked with EVA foam, but I as amazed at how easy it was to cut and shape and how well the hot glue held it together. This combination made a very sturdy and tough feeling base structure. Once I completed the base for the mask/helmet I moved on to the chest/back piece.

The idea for this was to make a vest type base that velcroed around the waist kind of like a ballistic vest. Once this was complete I started working on the details of the mask and chest piece. I waited until the last minute (last night) to clean up all of the finer details and make the leg covers. One thing that I learned that help with the details, I made a ton of thin EVA foam leaves. and anywhere I saw in imperfection (everywhere) I covered it with these foam leaves. I also made a small fringe around the sides and back with these as well as covering the leg covers. Before I glued the eyes into place I dug through my tool chest and found a hole saw bit just a bit smaller than my tea-lights and used it to drill a hole (by hand) through the eyes of the mask/helmet. I then glued the eyes over the hole. After pushing the tea-light in from behind I was able to make a small hole in the pupil portion of the mask for the led to poke through.

Finally go over all your pieces and add accents with the sharpies. My main goal was to try and make the brown pieces have lines like wood grain.

Links to buy materials(Please do not use these links to buy anything shop around and find the best prices.):

EVA anti-fatigue foam mats: http://www.amazon.com/We-Sell-Mats-Interlocking-Anti-Fatigue/sim/B0044XORUI/2

EVA foam sheets: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=eva%20foam%20sheets

Hot glue sticks: http://www.amazon.com/All-Temp-Hot-Glue-Sticks-Package/dp/B000FAFJEW

Sharpies: http://www.officedepot.com/a/browse/permanent-markers-and-marker-pens/N=5+4483/

Small roll of velcro: http://www.amazon.com/Velcro-Products-Industrial-Strength-Sticky Back/dp/B004E2OJ84/ref=pd_sbs_op_2

Blue LED tealights: http://www.amazon.com/Submersible-Battery-LED-Lights~BLUE~Wedding~Tea-Light/dp/B000VUNXSA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383150143&sr=8-1&keywords=blue+led+tea+lights

Megablocks Tree Rex Fists: http://www.megabloks.com/en-us/shop/construction-toys/skylanders/tree-rexs-smash-hands-95493