Impressive Homemade Jack Skellington Costume

I have made my costume every Halloween for the past 3 years and this year I decided to tackle my boyfriend’s. We both agreed on The Nightmare Before Christmas since were both huge fans of the movie. I never really liked the way the store bought costume looked so I decided to tackle his Jack Skellington costume on my own.

The mask was a bit of a struggle but, in the end, I was really impressed with how it all came together. I started with a punching balloon from iParty blown up big enough to allow some room for my boyfriends head. I did about 5 layers of paper mache, shaped the eyebrows and mouth with modeling clay, and then put a light spackle over the entire thing.

I will suggest that you spray your mache head with some type of glue prior to using the spackle as the mache tends to get a bit soggy when adding the spackle. Once finished, sand any lumps and give the entire thing a good spray of the glue again to protect it.

I cut out the eyes with an exacto knife and then super glued, from the inside, a sheer black material for the eyes. The nose and mouth I painted. As for keeping the mask sturdy while wearing it. I cut a hole in the back of the mask just large enough to squeeze my boyfriend’s head in. We then positioned a hard hat (with the rim trimmed off) inside and resigned it to the top mask. It worked like a charm and set quickly.

To close the back of the mask, I attached strips of Velcro to both the main mask and the smaller piece I cut out. It didn’t turn out as I had hoped, with a clean fit, but it was good enough.

The outfit was just something we found at a thrift store. I added the striped and modified the jacket to make the long tails like Jack Skellington has. The bow tie is merely felt with some wire superglued to the back do the ends would stand up and the bat face was made of modeling clay. The gloves were store bought.

As for my Sally costume. It is the deluxe costume made by Disney, but I changed the wig.

Hope you all enjoy.

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