Manning Makes Stuff - Halloween decorations, paper mache masks, costumes, party ideas, and more

Manning Makes Stuff - Halloween decorations, paper mache masks, costumes, party ideas, and more

Posts tagged "suit of armor":

Ghostly knight in not-so-shining armor Halloween costume

Ghostly knight Halloween costume

This was a costume I’d wanted to try for years, and it was a lot of fun! I decided to be a ghostly knight for my nighmare-themed Halloween party. My goal was to look like a knight that had been resting in a tomb for five hundred years; dirty and rusty and dessicated. After lots of research on how to make knight armor from scratch (which sounded really difficult and time-consuming), I opted to instead start with an ugly plastic store-bought suit of armor. As I often say, sometimes the best jumping off point for a beautiful custom Halloween costume is a crappy store-bought Halloween costume!

The suit of armor I bought was a nice shape, but a terrible color and texture; flimsy smooth silver-gray plastic; nowhere near as shiny or metallic-looking as you see in the photo there. That was fine, as I knew I wanted to change the look of the thing completely; I wanted to transform this plain silver-gray plastic texture into solid heavy old corroded metal. Here’s how I got it there:
Read more…

Published by Manning on June 26th, 2015 | No Comments

Ambitious Halloween costume ideas I’d like to try someday

I’m constantly brainstorming elaborate Halloween costumes I’d like to do someday; it really passes the time when I’m in meetings, or running, etc. I think through the challenges that would come with these complicated costumes, list out the materials I’d need, try to imagine what the work schedule would be like, etc. Here are some that I’ve thunk up.

Undead astronaut — the key to this costume is the helmet; I’d love to make a classic old-timey-lookin’ bubble-shaped astronaut helmet with a movable visor and everything; it’d be all weathered and aged and cracked, and I’d want to try to install little lights inside that shine on my face, which would be made up like a skeleton/very old mummified zombie. Of course the rest of the outfit would be a beat-up, stained, baggy astronaut uniform, with tubes and badges and an American flag and everything. I think I’d try to make the uniform myself out of some kind of stiff fabric, and paint the heck out of it, kind of like how I did my Renfield straight jacket.
Read more…

Published by Manning on June 22nd, 2015 | No Comments