Cool Homemade Scorpion Mortal Kombat Halloween Costume

So my 8 year old Gavin is an avid gamer and decided he just had to be his favorite character Scorpion for a Mortal Kombat Halloween costume. Me, a bit intimidated by the elaborate get up worn by the character, decided I’d give it a shot.

DIY Mortal Kombat Halloween Costume Creation

The Tabard

First thing I started with was the yellow tabard. I had an old leather vest and some yellow paint. I painted the vest and cut the sides to look like scorpions outfit.

Should Pads and Yoke

Next I moved on to the leather shoulder pads and yoke. My friend Bill was kind enough to give me his old leather motorcycle bags which were perfect. The pads that scorpion wears are pretty thick, so I cut them out twice as big as I needed and then folded them over to get that thickness I was looking for. They were way to thick to sew so I used a leather punch and made holes were I wanted the stiches to be. I cut a long thin strip of leather for the stitching and used a hooked carpet needle to do it.

Mortal Kombat Halloween Costume Weapons

For Scorpion’s signature weapons the Spears and chain that he uses to pull his enemies to him I decided to go with Clay so that they would be size accurate but lightweight.I used Sculpey bake clay and made two strands of chain about 17 Links long. for the spears shaped the outline of the Spears and baked them. then I layered Bondo around them for strength. But by sitting on one and snapping it our pit bull, Elaya, showed me that they just weren’t strong enough.  So I spend a few days deliberating how I can make them a little sturdier. So what I did was wrap them with wire and a thick layer of air-dry clay, again sanded and painted them with a metallic silver paint. They came out great and much stronger.

Leather Buckle Straps

My next step was to recreate the leather Buckle straps that hold the front and back of the tabard together the straps have a very heavy thick metal tips which I found out were called belt tips. Unfortunately online were only sold in 3 piece belt Hardware sets at the tune of 20 to $50 a set I only needed the tips and 4 of them so the hunt begins.

A friend suggested I try a leather shop in the nearby town. So my husband was sweet enough to give  up what turned into an entire Saturday in Morro Bay, looking for these tips. At the leather shop I was told pretty much the same thing as online. They only come in sets and he only gets them once in awhile.But since we had already made the 30-minute drive we decided to check out four of the local thrift shops. We ended up finding two belts that had tips on them so we bought those.Still 2 tips short, back at our local Goodwill I was able to find one more belt with a tip.I checked another little shop the 6th one by the way and found the last belt with tip that I needed. A bit relieved I moved on to putting the four straps together.

Constructing the Straps

Out of the old leather tack we have I was able to cut 4 straps of the same length. I pulled the tips off the belts and cut my straps to fit the tips. It was a surprisingly harder task than it sounded but it came out great. I was able to use the belts I took the tips off for the straps that scorpion wears under his tabard, thanks to some brown rusty metal primer I found in the garage.Now all the same color I took two belts buckled them together and the same with the other two, to get the desired appearance of a buckle on both sides of the waist. top and bottom.

The Mortal Kombat Halloween Costume Boots

Back at the Goodwill I was lucky enough to find a pair of Aeropostale women’s black leather boots that fit my son and looked very close to the booth scorpion wears. Minus the three Brown buckles on each but I would add those later.

The Collar

For the yoke like collar that goes around scorpions neck and holds down the hood. I used a leather cinch from an old bareback riding pad I had. Then I used black leather shoe polish to change the color from dirty brown to shiny black. I had no idea how I was going to attach the thing to the tabard but decided I’d figure out a way to cross that bridge when I got to it.

The Mask for the Mortal Kombat Halloween Costume

Aside from the signature yellow tabard scorpion wears, the most distinctive accessory to the costume is of course, none other than the mask. Now feeling quite happy with my success so far I thought it would be a good idea to try and make one. I found a great video on YouTube from make it mike props. Following the video I made a plaster cast of my son’s face. Let’s just say either my son’s inability to hold still or my lack of plaster skills was the end result of my feeble attempt.

I decided to buy a bare cast of the mask from mike. His work is amazing. when I received the mask I first added the straps to hold it on. I used Velcro strips and hot glue. Next I used a black pastel colored pencil to shade around the mask to give it a battered look. Then after a mix of 2 different yellow paints, pastels,crayons, yellow markers and even some yellow finger nail polish I had a pretty great replica of the Mortal Kombat X Scorpion mask.

Reworking the Mortal Kombat Halloween Costume

By this time about 3 weeks into this costume and really getting into it.  Upon closer inspection of scorpions yellow fiberous Tabard my painted leather one looks less and less like an acceptable replica. So I decided to ditch the vest and create my own tabard from scratch. After looking just about any and everywhere for the right fabric I notice a burlap sack in our shed. It’s perfect same weave pattern exactly. So step one bleach it out as much as possible. Step 2 hunt down the perfect yellow dye. Kmart, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and finally found it at Michaels.

After leaving it in the dye for about a half an hour as directions say the color is ok but not nearly as deep and rich as I would have liked to so I decided to leave it in the dye overnight. 12 hours later it’s perfect. Once the burlap was dry it was on to the next task of cutting out the front and back shapes. So I cut a hole in the bottom of the sack for his head put it on him and roughly group and outline front and back. I cut them out leaving two inches extra all the way around. I folded it over and use the black leather strip to stitch all the way around so that the burlap wouldn’t come in weaved.

The Back

The same was done for the back. Using the leather punch then made holes on both sides of the leather shoulder pads and Stitched both front and back pieces of the tabard to the Pads the same way. It took a really long time but I was happy with how much it looked like scorpions outfit.

Now attaching the Yoke might have been one of the biggest challenges of this costume build. No thread was tough enough to handle this job so I punched holes through the bottom of the yolk all the way around and used black ribbon to stich through the holes and attach the Yoke around the collar of the tabard and to my surprise it actually worked. I used a piece of the saddle bags to make a half circle leather piece on the back of the tabard. I was able to sew it on with heavy black thread and a curved carpet needle.

The Eyes

Now my son was dead set on scorpions whiteout eyes. I was a bit skeptical on being able to get the contacts in his eyes seeing is just brushing out tangles in his hair sounds like a scene from a classic horror movie. But I found a pair for a reasonable price so I ordered them.

Mortal Kombat Halloween Costume Swords

After some internet research I found an awesome pair of replica scorpion swords that BUDK had for $40 so I ordered them as well.

Wall browsing easy for some design ideas for bracers I found a perfect pair someone had made,but they were in the UK. I bought them and paid extra for express shipping. Now the contacts on the swords made it there just in time. The swords actually arriving on the 27th of October. The sheaths that came with the swords and shoulder straps were cheap nylon straps and we’re much too lightweight to hold the heavy steel swords.  I found some pictures of dual sword sword holders like Deadpool where’s and gave my best at creating one out of the leftover leather from the saddlebags. I cut the pieces out and Stitched them completely by hand.

Black Under Garment

For the black garment with all the Rings and straps that scorpion wears under his Tabard, I found a spandex Under Armour tank top that was perfect. For the complicated metal ring Buckle design, I took a thick square piece of leather to lay the pieces out on. I got 4 Chrome plated rings from a few old halters I had. After polishing them up they looked great.

Leather Straps

As for the 16 leather straps I carefully measured and cut each one to the right length and shape out of a set of driving harnesses that I had. Knowing that it was going to be impossible to find the exact metal hardware for these I got some silver model paint and with a super fine brush paint at the hardware design on the leather. Now to attach this layout to the square leather piece was another challenge being it was about one-and-a-half to two inches thick. But I ended up using a pneumatic staple gun to put in Staples. Each one had to be hammered flat.

Sewing the Mortal Kombat Halloween Costume

Ready to Stitch this leather piece to the Under Armour tank I realize the spandex wasn’t going to hold the weight. So I cut out a leather back plate for support. I put  it on the inside of the shirt the other on the outside with the shirt sandwiched in the middle and sewed it all the way around by hand. For anyone wondering why I didn’t use a sewing machine most of the other parts were way too heavy duty for sewing machine to handle. But in all honesty I taught myself with the help of a few YouTube videos to sew by hand.  I don’t know how to use a machine. After this is said and done I plan to take a class and really want to learn how.

Plan B

I have been checking the tracking on the bracers like 5 times a day stressing their arrival. But as my luck would have it they were stuck in customs and hadn’t moved in five days. By the 29th of October I accepted that they just weren’t going to make it in time. Now faced with the dreaded task of trying to recreate these incredibly detailed vambraces being my only option with only one day to do it. By purchasing them was exactly what I was trying to avoid but here goes nothing.

So I had a men’s large black leather jacket. It is too small for my husband too big for my son. I cut the sleeves off at the elbow on each side. Then I cut them down the middle and lay them flat. I put them around my arm measured marked cut until I was happy with the shape. to get the desired thickness I got a felt barbecue cover and cut out matching shapes but just about an inch larger on all sides. I then punched holes and Stitched all the way around the edges to join the felt to the leather.

After I had got both done I admired them in amazement. I had doubted my abilities and was afraid to try. But when left with no options I proved to myself anything is possible if you try. You may just be surprised at what you can do. Finally the Mortal Kombat Halloween costume was coming together!

The Belt

Last thing to do was try and make the leather leg harness / belt. So I used a leather saddle bag strap that I used for the waist belt. I took the reins off of an old Bridal and played around wrapping my son up in different ways until he wouldn’t stand still any longer. The design was pretty close to spot-on. I punched a few holes and tied the leather pieces together.

Homemade Mortal Kombat Halloween Costume Completion!

The Moment of Truth, time to put everything on. Getting the entire costume on took about 15 to 20 minutes start to finish. My son was a trooper about the contacts we got them both in and less than 3 minutes and he loved them. He just kept looking at himself in the mirror. We had decided to go trick or treating in San Luis Obispo. They had a map there of businesses that were giving out candy downtown. As soon as we started our journey across town the looks and comments didn’t stop.

The most recognition came from the 20-35 male group that knew this Infamous video game Legend. That played as him in the game and the child in them always imagined it being awesome to dress up like him. Envisioning themselves throwing Spears and yelling get over here or scorpion wins fatality. Gavin packed the heavy costume all  through town like a champ. The comments from the women were more about the craftsmanship of the costume. The women from Bed Bath & Beyond “wow Mom that costume is absolutely amazing great job,”  meant the most to me.

Mortal Kombat Halloween Costume Success

In the end the five weeks of challenges, success, disappointment, laughter, tears, and late nights, it was all worth the end result. Gavin had a blast at his school Halloween party and all the attention he got trick-or-treating. He looked like a miniature version of Scorpion in his Mortal Kombat Halloween costume. I can’t wait to see what challenges next year’s Halloween will bring me.

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