Remember the videogame Centipede?
My Halloween costume for Halloween 2004 was a one person Centipede costume. Initially I had intended on making it a 6 person Centipede costume. It would have looked similar to those Chinese dragons you see in parades. However, I wanted each segment to be large and the result would have been spheres about 6 feet in diameter. That would have been a big problem due to the annoyance that most doors are not 6 feet wide.
So, I made a one person costume using steel wire for the frame. I love steel wire! My Pacman Costume from last year was made using PVC pipes for the frame. Those are great when you want a very solid but still light frame, but the circular PVC piping I used was hard to come by. I got it from my welding teacher and I have no idea where I would get more.
However, steel wire is cheap. At Home Depot Pro it only cost about 10 cents a foot (it came in 120 foot spools). I bought 240 feet of it. I needed most of it too! I used approximately 180 feet of wire in this centipede costume!
This wire wouldn't be very useful if I wanted straight segments, but it's perfect for rounded things.
At the IGN Halloween costume contest my costume got straight 10's (there were four judges, each of which gave me a 10)! There were three prizes ($100 for 3rd, $200 for 2nd, and $300 for first place). Getting $300 in the contest was great, but to be honest the most important thing to me was winning the contest (although the prize money does make the contest real. Without a significant prize, a contest just doesn't feel like a contest.). Getting kudos for my efforts makes all the time I put into a project even more worthwhile.
Here are some pictures! (There's a few more coming, but these are the ones I have now.)
Here's the initial wireframe I created.
It's fabric fitting time!
What a pretty face you have!
What a pretty skull you have!
Here's what it looks like from the inside near the top of the front part.
Here's what it looks like from the inside lower down in the front part.
Here's what the inside of the tail looks like.
What pretty pupil-less eyes you have!
Hmm. You look a little crazy with round pupils.
Aha! Cat eyes are perfect!
Here I am watching the costume contest.
Ahhh. Finally, a rest after a long day's work.
My Halloween costume for Halloween 2004 was a one person Centipede costume. Initially I had intended on making it a 6 person Centipede costume. It would have looked similar to those Chinese dragons you see in parades. However, I wanted each segment to be large and the result would have been spheres about 6 feet in diameter. That would have been a big problem due to the annoyance that most doors are not 6 feet wide.
So, I made a one person costume using steel wire for the frame. I love steel wire! My Pacman Costume from last year was made using PVC pipes for the frame. Those are great when you want a very solid but still light frame, but the circular PVC piping I used was hard to come by. I got it from my welding teacher and I have no idea where I would get more.
However, steel wire is cheap. At Home Depot Pro it only cost about 10 cents a foot (it came in 120 foot spools). I bought 240 feet of it. I needed most of it too! I used approximately 180 feet of wire in this centipede costume!
This wire wouldn't be very useful if I wanted straight segments, but it's perfect for rounded things.
At the IGN Halloween costume contest my costume got straight 10's (there were four judges, each of which gave me a 10)! There were three prizes ($100 for 3rd, $200 for 2nd, and $300 for first place). Getting $300 in the contest was great, but to be honest the most important thing to me was winning the contest (although the prize money does make the contest real. Without a significant prize, a contest just doesn't feel like a contest.). Getting kudos for my efforts makes all the time I put into a project even more worthwhile.
Here are some pictures! (There's a few more coming, but these are the ones I have now.)
Here's the initial wireframe I created.
It's fabric fitting time!
What a pretty face you have!
What a pretty skull you have!
Here's what it looks like from the inside near the top of the front part.
Here's what it looks like from the inside lower down in the front part.
Here's what the inside of the tail looks like.
What pretty pupil-less eyes you have!
Hmm. You look a little crazy with round pupils.
Aha! Cat eyes are perfect!
Here I am watching the costume contest.
Ahhh. Finally, a rest after a long day's work.
Version 6.1 last modified by Geoff Fortytwo on 11/07/2010 at 16:10
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