I was inspired to build this costume from a drawing I saw on the internet. I was looking for something out of the ordinary but yet kinda scary.
After much thinking and planning the process began. I folded and hot glued cardboard into the shape of boards. I wanted this to be truly three dimensional. After a package of 100 glue sticks the form was built. I then spray painted it brown to resemble wood. I cut out a hole in the seat and attached shoulder straps so I could actually walk around in this costume.
Then I hit the thrift stores.
I found the pants, shirt and belts for the straps there. I bought iron on patches and wrote “Death Row” and 103107 for the shirt and stuffed the legs of the pants. After many trials and errors, I found this headpiece that was just perfect. It was an old reflecter light complete with the wires that I found at another thrift store. I cut the adjustable parts out of an old hard hat and super glued it all together. The feet were from a previous costume that I had stored.
This costume also had lights and sound. I ordered a white flashing survival light and attached it behind my head $20. The mask was also ordered for this costume for $30. I had an old Halloween flashlight that had the sounds of electricity on it.
Total cost was about $80.
I took first place at two different clubs for a total of $150. And… had a sore neck for a couple days from wearing it all night LOL!
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I knew you had a “sparking” personality! magnolia aka Susan
Your costume was awesome. You do a great job at creating them and I look forward to hearing/seeing what you be each year and trying to think of some cool ones myself :)
WOW! AWESOME JOB
We all got a real “charge” of of this costume. I look forward every year to your next work of art.
Wow Kathy, I really like what you did there. Say, what are your plans for Halloween this year? I also live in Illinois and was curious to know if you wanted to come by my apartment. I am inviting several other creative halloweiners over for an adult party.
ohh wow. I thought this was a real person. This looks really scary though.
You may not believe this, but I originally created this costume back in 1984 in South Florida. It looked more or less the same, and had the fake legs and shoulder straps as you described. I wore the costume through about a ten year period and won pretty much every major contest in South Florida.
Prizes included over $30,000 in cash and vacation trips the clubs offered. It was an amazing costume that just couldn’t lose. The only exceptions were if a contest were judged by a panel of judges versus audience voting (this means lots of screaming and shouting by the crowd in my favor).
In the evolution of the costume, I added a CO2 fire extinguisher with hoses up the back where you could activate the extinguisher via a plunger rod, that would send billows of smoke up the back of the costume all the while as I yelled and screamed bloody hell to the audience.
That costume was one of the best times I ever had. Glad to see so many others being inspired by it.
Wow, you created the FIRST ever electric chair costume?? How were you able to research so extensively into history to figure that out? I can’t believe that nobody did an electric chair costume before you. The electric chair must have not been invented until right before 1984!