Past Project: Predator Costume

Since Halloween's coming up, I've decided to do writeups about some of my old costume projects.  First up: the Predator.

For Halloween 2005 I decided to go as the creature from the Predator movies.  I built this costume in my woodshop over about two months worth of nights and weekends.  If you'd like to do the same, follow these simple steps.

To begin, build a body double. You'll need a set of easily cut, disposable clothes and about 5 rolls of duct tape. Have an assistant wrap you in duct tape until it feels like you can't move anymore. Ideally, you'll look something like this:

Then cut off the duct tape and the clothes it's attached to, get dressed, and tape the seams of your duct tape mannequin. Stuff the duct tape skin with newspaper or something similarly lightweight. Then dress it with the bodysuits that will become the foundation of your musclesuit. Now it's time to start sculpting the muscle masses out of upholstery foam:

When you've built your musculature enough for it to be convincing, it's time to coat it with liquid latex. It took me five coats to get a skin like this:

In hindsight, I should have made the arms separate from the torso. This would have allowed for a greater freedom of movement and the armor could've been designed to hide the seams. Oh well.

Once the latex skin has dried thorougly, it's time to paint. First I painted just the lightest and darkest parts (black and a mixture of flesh, white, and yellow colors) and then blended them in with some brown shading:

The next step is where you'll end up with carpal tunnel syndrome. To really bring this character to life I started adding the spots:

And then a clearcoat to make it look wet:

The same process was used to make the legs for the musclesuit.

The feet were made the same way only they were built on top of a pair of cheap high-heel boots that I destroyed for the purpose. These were mounted to a couple of pieces of 3/4" plywood which would become the soles of the creature's feet:

And built up they looked like this:

The claws were made from Sculpey brand polymer clay, and the armor plate was made using Sintra brand PVC sheet. The rest of the armor plates were made the same way.

Essentially, Sintra is cut to shape and bent using a heat gun to soften it. Once the desired shape is made, the edges are sculpted using an epoxy putty. When the putty has cured, the parts are primed, painted, and weathered. Then they look like this:

I also needed hands. These were a custom sculpt over a lifecast of a friend's hands. Once I had finished the sculpt I made a mold and cast them in latex. I would've preferred to have them start in the same pose, but my hand model took direction poorly:

The hands were painted in the same way as the musclesuit and feet.

At this point I was starting to run out of time, so I found another similarly deranged person online and bought a raw latex cast of a head sculpt he had made. When I received the head, it looked like this:

When I had finished adding dreadlocks (pre-caulking foam filler rod), quills, teeth and paint, it looked about like this:

At this point I had also been working on the gauntlets. I stripped the working parts out of an LED belt buckle for the computer readout on the left side. For the right side, I ground some aluminum stock into a pair of blades. You can't see it, but there's a notch in one of them so I can use it as a bottle opener. I also have them mounted on a track so that I can extend them with a flick of the wrist and retract them via a spring mechanism. The gauntlets open in clamshell fashion with a pin that keeps them closed when worn:

The only thing that was left at this point was the fishnets, the leather work and the loincloth. The leather was bought at a local saddle shop. They cut me about four feet worth of 1-inch strap for a very modest price. The loincloth was a piece of faux suede that a friend of mine hemmed to make it look a little more substantial. The fishnets proved to be a bit more difficult than I'd anticipated. It turns out that what I was looking for wasn't fishnet, but "industrial net" with bigger holes. The biggest holes are found in "fence net." Now you know as much as I do about women's hosiery.

For the Predator I managed to order an industrial net catsuit (one size fits all, with "convenience crotch") that only barely fit over the massive biceps and shoulders of the assembled costume. With the addition of a few little bones and teeth, the whole assembled costume looked about like this:

It added at least six inches to my height and managed to impress just about everyone that saw it. The only drawback was that with all of the foam and rubber built into it, it was about as cozy as a two inch thick wetsuit. Suffice it to say that I was a bit warm. The shoes were a bit uncomfortable, so I couldn't walk for very long distances. The only other part that was uncomfortable was the contacts:

If for some sick reason you'd like to do this to yourself, the following websites will be helpful:

The Hunter's Lair: http://www.thehunterslair.com

Monster Makers: http://www.monstermakers.com/

Enjoy.