Epic Deluxe Homemade Yoshi Costume

This Yoshi  costume was requested by my daughter and her friends. It is an iconic video game character and most children and young adults can easily identify him from the Mario Brothers games.I had no idea, however, the enormity of the task of creating an adult sized costume of this beloved character.

The first challenge I faced was finding the appropriately vibrant green short napped fur that I wanted to use for the bulk of the costume. After exhausting searches all over our area and finally a visit to Miami, I gave up trying to find the fur in a store. There was a fur that looked about right on Ebay that I decided to try. I ordered the green and also the white from the seller from Taiwan.

Fortunately, the fur turned out to be perfect, alas, I didn’t order enough . I had to place a second order . There was a lot of time spent waiting for the arrivals, but in the end the furs were exactly what I wanted. Having never made a mascot type of costume before, I really just made up the process as I went along. The head seamed a good place to start, because if it didn’t turn out right I would just trash the whole project. It was too expensive to order a third batch of fur.

The head started as a wire base in the general shape I wanted. Then I added a layer of half inch foam that I hand sewed over the wire frame. To smooth everything out , I topped that with batting and then finally the green and white fur. By far the most difficult part was making the head symmetrical. I had to stuff little bits of fiberfill here and there to make the two sides exactly the same size and shape. The eye are just polar fleece that I hand tacked in place.

The body was made in a similar fashion. I made a wire frame for the body that I suspended from a beam in the garage. There is only fur over the wire body. The body fur was hand sew over the wire frame. Then I sewed on arms and legs. The hands are separate gloves and the feet are made like giant slippers. I tried really hard to keep everything in perspective to the actual character. Finally I made a turtle shell for the back and spikes out of polar fleece fabric and hand tacked those in place.

The costume came out almost exactly the way I wanted it to. I worked on it for over 3 months and I can’t say that I enjoyed the process, but once I started I was determined to finish and do the best I could. We always get positive feedback and many pictures taken when this costume is used. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

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