Awesome Homemade Slimer Costume from Ghostbusters

When we decided that we were going to do something somewhat ordinary like a Ghostbusters theme for our Halloween costumes this year, I knew I had to do something over the top to make it stand out. Rather than take the obvious character options for costumes, I wanted to challenge myself and try to make a SLIMER costume. I also didn’t want to break the bank buying materials to make this costume (since most of the cool ones I saw online were hundreds of dollars to make) so I knew I would have to get creative with materials.

I wanted it to be made out of a soft light weight material so it wouldn’t be too awkward or heavy to wear at the party we were going to. I also knew I wanted it to have a wet slimy look (you know, sort of gross like SLIMER was in the movie). So if I wanted to keep this a budget friendly costume I knew, rather than hit the craft store for the obvious materials (by the yard Foam and liquid latex), it was the hardware store and department store for me. The materials I chose to use were- a full size egg crate style foam that you would put on a bed (under $10), some foam pipe insulators ($1.25 each), expanding spray foam in a can ($3), several tubes of paintable silicone caulking ($2 per tube), hot glue and glue gun, assorted spray paints, 2 ping pong balls, and an old long sleeve t-shirt and old gloves I had around the house.

The costume turned out even better than I had hoped and it was a definite HIT at the Halloween party we attended, (where we won best costumes.) We also made the Dr. Venkman  Ghostbuster costume (complete with light up proton pack) that accompanied SLIMER to the party, but that’s another story…. here’s how SLIMER came to life…

Dr. Venkman and SLIMER

starting materials and finished SLIMER costume

Making the Head

So I started making SLIMER come to life by cutting up the foam bedding into some small triangles and hot gluing them back together to form a dome shape for his head, from there I drew a rough sketch of his face on the foam so I could figure out how to build out the rest of his face and cheeks. I then used the foam pipe insulators to give the foam some structure and also to give that “fat/rolls” look that SLIMER has. I attached everything together using hot glue.

making the head

Forming the Body

After the head was formed, I started to build out his body. I cut the foam bedding into strips and glued it together. I then cut up the foam insulators and added them to the foam body to look like rolls. I took the spray foam and added it (in layers) to build out his cheeks and also around his rolls created by the pipe insulators. I also made cuts in his body for my arms to go though.

forming the body

Carving the Face

After the spray foam dried completely (I waited about 24 hrs, so all layers were completely dry) I carved it to look more like SLIMER’S face, adding eye sockets, cheeks, a nose, and blended it into the mouth of the costume.

carving the face

Making SLIMER slimey

Now that the body of SLIMER was pretty much formed, I knew painting directly on foam would give him a very dull, lifeless finish that I did not want, so I decided to completely cover all parts of him in silicone. I put regular white paintable silicone from the hardware store on him and spread it out to cover all parts of him, it also worked out great for filling in any gaps and also for smoothing the look of the rolls so they looked more like continuous rolls rather than just stuff glued together.

adding the silicone

Paint and Details

Now came the fun part, because he was actually beginning to look like SLIMER. After waiting another 24 hours to make sure the silicone was good and dry, I painted him with some high gloss olive green spray paint, I used a few different colors to get some depth and shading, then added a final light layer of fluorescent color to make him nice and bright green. After his several coats of paint were dry I added some foam gums and teeth that were cut out of the left over bed foam, I spayed the gums with red spray paint….then after attaching them to SLIMER, I covered them with hot glue so it looked like drool. I also cut a tongue out of foam, coated that with silicone (so it would look we and slimy) then painted it red, covered it with hot glue to look like drool. I painted some red ping pong balls yellow then when dry, I scratched off the yellow paint so red veins showed through and added a black pupil with a permanent marker and put them in the eye sockets on the costume.

paint and details

Hands and Arms

For the final step, SLIMER needed some arms and hands. For the arms i took an old long sleeve t-shirt that I had and covered the sleeves with silicone and painted them in the same green colors that the rest of the costume was painted. Then I cut them off the shirt and hot glued them to the arm holes on the costume. I also took a pair of old rubber gloves and painted them in the same green colors, and SLIMER was complete!

adding arms

finished SLIMER costume

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