Robot Costume

My son absolutely loves robots. He points them out everywhere, loves any movie or book involving robots, has a few robot toys which are his favorites, and we have even begun decorating his room with robots because he loves them so much. So when it came time for Halloween, we knew exactly what he had to be. Once he saw the beginning of his costume, he constantly wanted to wear it and play with it.

The base of the costume is a cardboard box, with a smaller box attached to the top with duct tape and hot glue. I then spraypainted all of this silver for that typical robot look. The details on the front are all cardboard which I painted, then hot glued on, and secured with black puffy paint around the edges. The arrow on his "energy gauge" is secured with a screw and bolt so that it actually moves.
The "key" and gears on the back are also all cardboard; the gears he painted himself (and were actually leftover party decorations from his robot themed birthday), for the key I used a paper towel tube and cutouts to make it 3-D.
The arms are metallic dryer vent tubing that I got from the hardware store and attached inside of two holes cut out of the body with duct tape and then spray painted the tape so that it would all blend better.
I worked on the costume over the course of a couple months, the details on the front took multiple coats of paint and some trial and error, so in total it probably took about 24 hours.

We got incredible reactions from EVERYONE who saw him in his costume. While trick or treating, there were lots of houses who gave him double or triple the amount of candy just for having such an awesome costume. Even fellow trick-or-treaters were complimenting the details put into it and how cute it was. People told us it was perfect, and we got lots of kudos for making it (and making it well) as well as "putting up with it" because it was a little bit difficult for him to walk in, plus it was cold and rainy!

We are all in love with this robot costume, and are trying to figure out the best way to save it. This is the first costume I've made and I couldn't be more proud of myself. It was the absolute perfect costume for our little robot lover. I think we should be the definite winner because this costume is not only absolutely adorable, but it is of high quality and full of character with all of the details.