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Tinman Costume

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Tinman Costume

Homemade Tinman costume

Costume type:  Costumes for Adults
Category:Halloween Costumes

This homemade costume for adults entered our 2016 Halloween Costume Contest.

A word from Melissa, the 'Tinman' costume creator:

So my 4 year old daughter decided she wanted to be Dorothy for halloween this year and she wanted mommy to be tinman so I looked online and I wasn't a fan of the packaged tinman costunes so I did a little research and came up with my idea.
1.grabbed a card board box and made it into a cylinder buy using a box cutter. I 1st cut the top and bottom of the box off so I could make it round.
2. I rolled the box up to make it round and placed it around my body to get the right size. I then cut what I needed of to make the perfect cylinder.
3. Then I taped it from the inside with silver masking tape and secured it some more on the outside with tape. Next you need to make holes for your arms. Which I just judged with my eyes and used my box cutter and made to holes on each side and then cover it around the rim with silver masking tape.
4. I then used what I could out of the left over pieces of cardboard and was able to make a round cylinder that would go around my neck and sit on top of my cylinder. I secured that with masking tape as well.
5. Next I moved on to foam board, which was a little more flexible, I bought from the dollar store.I used the foam board to male the cylinders for my thighs and lower legs. I wanted to have the metal look like tinman. So I used my razorblade and size the board to my thigh and cut it and taped it from the inside and outside. I repeated that for the other leg as well.
6. I decided to use the rest of the cardboard for the lower portion of my leg because I felt it would hold up stronger when I had to slide my leg in and out of it everytime I wore the costume. So I measured the size for my lower leg and taped that as well inside and outside so it was secure.
7.Now I need to make the panels that would be placed on my shoulders, elbows, knees and shoes. (Like armor) this would give the metal look. So for this I used all foam board. I cut thick Cresent moon shapes, doesn't have to be perfect, because your going to spray paint them. I cut out 18 of them, so I would have 3 on each location.
8. Now I looked around my house and I found these wooden small dowels that I could use as the buttons coming down the cylinder and for my shoes. I also had extra so I used them on the ends of my shoulder panels. This was a little tricky because I had to use 3 different glues to het them to stay on sturdy. (Don't use a hot glue gun) they feel off. So just buy a gorilla glue. I continued to take pairs of 3 and glue the cylinders on top of one another and make them look like armor almost. Then I glued them on my cylinder shoulders
9. So after that was all drying I still needed gloves, shoes, pants and shirt. So I grab an old pair of sweat pants, a long sleeve shirt I had, and old shoes.
10. I took my old shoes and I grabbed my panels and my dowels and I was able to poke the dowels through the foam board to sit right on top of my shoe and gorilla glued my foam board to my shoe.
11. Now I took all my pieces outside and was able to spray paint everything silver (recommend the rust-oleum) my shoes the cylinder,shirt, pants, cylinders and panels.
12. Spray painting the pants and shirt, recommend atleast 2 coats. The cylinder I sprayed as well twice. Let everything dry
13. Now that everything was silver I wanted to attach the thigh to the sweat pants. So I decided to take metal wire I bought from the dollar store and I looped it from the front of my sweatpants to the cylinder and twisted and secured it. I proceed to do that to the front and back of both legs. Then I used a piece of silver masking tape to help secure it.
14. After everything was dry I was able to place the armor panels on my elbows and thigh panels using the gorilla glue. Let dry fully.
15. For extra fun, I wanted it to sound like metal when I walked, so I grabbed a bell. Mine was a cow bell. I took a stripe of tape and placed it along the bottom of the bell only covering 1/2 the opening to get the correct sound I wanted. (You can play around with taping to get the sound you want.
16. Then I took my metal wire and strung the bell on the inside of my body cylinder and secured with silver masking tape.
17. I gave all my pieces another layer of spray paint to go over any extra silver tape I used so it would blend in more. (Optional) I also added a heart which i purchased for $3.00(glued the heart on) but you can also paint a heart on as well.
18. Now for the face, as you see I ended up getting a mask because I am allergic to some face paints. Though it's very easy to do this. I would have just gotten a funnel and spray painted it silver, grab some velcro stripes at the dollar store. Then spray paint it. Glue the stripe onto the funnel to fit around your chin. Next grab either liquid or cream base silver paint and cover your entire face. You could go as far as getting a bald latex wig and spray that too.
19. Now the fun part was trying it all on! Success you know have a homemade Tinman costume.
Cardboard box-already had at home
Metal wire- $1.00
Foamboard-6 boards $6.00
Spraypaint-2 cans $7.00
Dowels - already had at home
Shoes,pants,shirt-already had at home
Cow bell- $3.00
Heart- $3.00
Mask- 15.00 second hand store

Rating: 4.2 of 5. Votes: 5

5 votes

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