I won an award at the Castro Street Halloween festival in San Francisco with this Jellyfish Costume Design! I started with some soft Styrofoam packing pieces, an umbrella and a hula hoop.
CONSTRUCTION:
I made a shoulder pad/costume stand out of two pieces of Styrofoam packing pieces large enough to put my head through (from some audio component or computer probably). One piece sat on my shoulders and the other piece was set vertically, perpendicular to it from my shoulders up to the top of my head to pad the umbrella handle going down my back. These are taped together and tied together with string. I put the umbrella on my head and set the handle to go down my back. I tied the umbrella handle to the vertical Styrofoam piece and added two 1′ pieces of PVC pipe to steady the umbrella against my shoulders and keep it just above my head. This piece should hold together so the costume headpiece is removable as one piece. I put this base on the top of a ladder before continuing so that I could make the strands long enough to go to the floor.
I put a hula hoop on top of the umbrella to make a nice round edge, covered the two in thin white cloth and sewed around under the bottom edge of the hula hoop to hold the hoola hoop in place around the edge of the umbrella. I left some of the white cloth draping to cover the frame and to my waist (leaving a space for my face in front).
DECORATION:
I covered the frame in bubble wrap draping to the floor. I covered that in a thin phosphorescent purple cloth draping to the floor. The phosphorescent cloth was thin enough to cover my face opening with it. I cut the bubble wrap and phosphorescent cloth in strips from chest height down to the floor.
I wore a white shirt. I got white pants at the thrift store and cheap white tennis shoes and sewed/glued on strips of phosphorescent material and bubble wrap and little plastic shells & fish. The whole thing may have cost $30 or so, mostly in fabric since the frame was all junk I had around the house.
USE:
In this, I’m very tall and very wide. I had to remove it to get in and out of a car, go down a hallway, etc. One of the pictures below shows a friend in it. Since I could take it off and put it on someone else, several friends wanted their picture taken in it. The frame needs to be strong enough to hold together when removing it.
STORAGE:
I store it hanging from the basement ceiling.
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