Cool Homemade Costume for a Boy: Monty Python's Black Knight

My 10-year-old is a big fan of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He wanted to be the Black Knight for Halloween, so we set out to create the costume. The toughest part was figuring out what we could make the helmet out of. We settled on a cheap black plastic flower pot from Home Depot.

With a razor blade I sliced out rectangles for the eyes and mouth grill. We created the grill itself out of thin strips of black duct tape. We hot-glued bubble wrap inside to tighten the fit for his head. For the rivets we first used thumb tacks, but quickly realized that would be really dangerous for his face! So we replaced them with brad fasteners. We extended the helmet at the front of the neck by gluing a triangular cardboard panel. Then we spraypainted the whole thing with black metallic paint. We went through a lot of trial and error and really enjoyed collaborating, looking up images online, etc.

The clothing was pretty easy. We went searching at thrift shops for a cable-knit sweater we could spraypaint silver, to give the look of chainmail. But we lucked out and found a silver cowlneck sweater that was perfect. (The real knight had a solid black top, but for safety while trick-or-treating a silver shirt would be much more visible). The black shirt is an XL tshirt turned inside out. Making the boar’s face was the funnest part for me because I love to draw. We bought a single panel of red felt at a craft store. I created a pattern by free-drawing the face onto white paper while looking at a google image. Then I used that pattern to cut out the felt and drew on it with sharpie. Add a belt and sword, and voila! None Shall Pass!

We still have time to create a detachable bleeding arm. I’ll update if we do it.