Original Homemade Winged Dragon Halloween Costume

My five year old son was very excited about being a dragon this year. The homemade winged dragon Halloween costume did not appear to be complicated until we got started.

We could not find a dragon head mask which fit him so I made one from paper mache. The eyes were craft eyes held in with white sticky putty. We dry brush painted the head when it was finished, then sealed it with a clear sealant to protect it from rain (which was lucky, since it poured Halloween night!). We painted the head and the spikes brown to match the body, except for the three large horns which we painted white.

The body was made with 9 gauge wire, which my husband formed into a frame and soldered together. The entire frame was attached to a board, which was attached to a book bag, and so the weight of the dragon rested entirely on his shoulders. We attached the head to the top of the frame, then molded foam over the frame and covered it with a scaly-looking material. We made black spikes and added them down the back and the tail, and finished the tail end with a spiky ball-shaped thing made out of the same black material.

I made him a pair of pants and a shirt out of the brown scaly material, with the black down the middle as anaccent. We put a black hat on him and painted his face black so it didn’t stand out so much. He wouldn’t, however, let me paint it again for the pictures!

We also covered the book bag straps and made claws for his hands and feet. These claws were attached to the pants and shirt and hooked over my son’s hands and shoes with black elastic. This allowed his hands freedom of movement.

The wings were probably the coolest part of the costume. They were black wire frames that slid into slots I sewed in the material. The material was black and looked like it had holes in it, resembling the dragon wear in the movie “Reign of Fire”. The cool part was that the wings, where they attached to the main frame, were hinged. This way, they could fold back when he was walking through a crowd. To fold them forward, my son pulled a handle, which made the wings open out in a huge span from a second hinge at the top.

We have lots of additional pictures of this costume which we would be happy to send on.

Time spent working on the costume was probably between 80-100 hours and the cost was around $50. We spent lots of late nights after work, and most of the weekends in October, working on it. Everyone trick or treating seemed incredibly impressed and my son loved pulling out the wings and showing off! It was a huge hit!

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