The inspiration for this Homemade Frankstein Wants His Mummy Costume came from a pregame show at an Altoona Curve Baseball game. A gentleman dressed as the Indian from the Village People puppeteered the five other V.P. characters to the song Y.M.C.A., using poles much like we used on our costume’s feet. The Indian was placed between the other characters, which appeared to be clothed life-sized blow up dummies, and he controlled the puppets in a synchronized manner. My son thought it would be cool as a costume with a classic Halloween touch; Frankenstein chasing a mummy. That was three years ago.
Being the procrastinator that I am, I had put off making it until this year (lots of whining by my son finally wore me down); however the planning had been going on in my head for those three years. The biggest challenge was coming up with a light weight, life size puppet that was easy to operate. Since I didn’t know anyone with a blow up doll (well, no one who would admit to owning one), and I didn’t feel comfortable ordering one, ahem, (this is a child’s costume after all), I considered using chicken wire to make the torso, but then I came across a single pool noodle, the kind with a hole in the center, and a light bulb just went off.
Now for the real problem; finding more pool noodles in October! It was tough, but was I persistent and lucky for my son, I found some.
The body is made with pool noodles, tape, and wire (used to attach the legs and arms for motion), a balloon, and some torn sheets, plus one dress. I tea dyed the dress and torn sheets, then I sprinkled the torn sheets with lemon juice and baked them in a 250 degree oven for about an hour (or to desired scorching intensity), stirring up the sheets occasionally. Fabric is very hot when you remove it, so use caution when handling it fresh out of the oven. The lemon juice causes areas to have a more aged look. I finished the drying process in the clothes dryer. I wrapped the mummy’s arms, legs and chest.
I started out intending to papier-mâché the head, but because of my time crunch, I just wrapped the head with the torn fabric and rubbed the papier-mâché paste over the fabric, which hardened quite nicely and was light weight. I only did this to the head.
I used bamboo gardening sticks for the arm controls, which were pushed through the center holes of the arm noodles and were added after the mummy was fully dressed. The feet were taped to hollow plastic poles (from a broken badminton set) and then wrapped so the tip of the poles didn’t show.
Frankenstein was made from a suit coat with pool noodle pieces taped to the inside of the shoulders, a black shirt, and black pants. I attached real bolts to a fabric covered headband using construction strength glue reinforced with a wire wrap, and placed it around his neck. I painted the fabric headband with the same green Frankenstein face makeup for a nice blend. I taped a large pair of men’s black dress shoes to the back of the foot poles with black duct tape for a secure hold. It was cold when my son went trick or treating so we added a vest under his black shirt, which really made him look bigger, enhancing the whole Frankenstein look.
(This is a resubmission, because I had a computer glitch, and was unable to complete all of the steps).
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