Building the gnome costume

As always, my the first step in building any big costume is to build the frame.

Next step is to wrap the frame with padding. This is cotton batting which is usually used inside quilts. I didn't shape it at all. I just wrapped it around and cut it until it was roughly the correct shape. I put some clear tape on there to hold the padding in place, but mostly it's kept in place by the skin that I added in the following picture.

Now the skin is in place.

It's a faceless gnome! Also there aren't any shoes and the pants and shirt aren't padded. I also had a pillow in there which made the head rise up quite a bit higher than I had originally intended. I later just removed the pillow and balanced the head in the crooks of my elbows.

The head is off.

The head is starting to take shape. The headband and nose are in place, but the angry eyes just don't look right.

The shoes really look good although they aren't attached to the pants yet.

The head is off again.

The head looks pretty good! But most of the parts are just pinned in place and the angry eyes just don't look right.

Geoff in padded pants looks over at the head.

It's amazing how much stuffing it takes to stuff the shirt and pants. In this picture the shirt is just getting stuffed directly. I later make a second shirt that I sew inside the first shirt so that the stuffing doesn't fall out the bottom.

Emily thinks that I looked pregnant when I had the orange shirt stuffed. That's true, but only because I didn't need to stuff all the way up to the chest because the head covered the top of the shirt.

It's looking really good now! The padded shirt and pants really make it come alive. The lip looks a little funny and there are various parts that aren't sewn up yet, but it's mostly done.

Now we finally see the almond eyes. I tried to add eyelids, but my attempt here looks terrible. I also tried half lidded eyes where I cut out half an almond shape and put a half over the top half of the eye. It made him look like he was sleepy.

This is what the shirt looked like after Halloween. It seemed to hold up ok. I got pretty hot while wearing it. The liner worked really well at keeping the padding in. I really wish I had done the same with with the pants though. As it was I ended up having to reposition the padding in the pants every time I stuck my legs in. The padding would also pull out all over the place when I pulled my legs back out.

This is what the pants looked like after Halloween. The crotch tore open when I tripped on that planter because Emily didn't guide me well. Strangely, the tear wasn't really visible because the shirt was pulled down so far. So it wasn't a big problem.

main gnome page
designing the gnome costume
building the gnome costume
wearing the gnome costume at iPass
wearing the gnome costume around town