Lego Deadpool Costume

This instructable is for a LARGE ADULT costume. It covers the head and upper body only. I did not create legs or hands because I wanted to wear this to dinner and a club. I didn't want to have to keep track of extra things. Mobility, Safety, and Comfort were my priorities.

As it is, you can't wear this in a car and you won't be able to sit down (maybe a bar stool?). So keep that in mind. If I was doing a costume contest, I would have done more parts, but I didn't want to have to keep up with a lot of stuff :-)

EDIT: Funny story - They had a costume contest at the club we went to for Halloween and I won 2nd place with this costume! Felt pretty good about that as there were lots of very cool costumes there.

Thanks

Thanks to Kaged Kombat for his excellent instructable on a regular Lego man. I started with his instructions and then did my own thing. Using the concrete form and insulation foam for the head are dead on. Hopefully my instructions will add something helpful to his idea.

Size Matters

The amount and size of materials depends on your size. I'm 6'3" and 288 pounds. Your size will dictate the materials you need for your costume.

Time To Complete

This is not a 1 day costume It took me 3 weekends to make this. I spent a total of 21 hours on it. Give yourself plenty of time to sand, shape, and paint things - including time to let things dry.

Cost

Your cost may vary but I used about $90 worth of materials, including the toy swords and guns.

I spent a total of about $150 but I didn't open or use everything I bought. I now have extra spraypaint, styrofoam, tape, etc. If I did it over again, I think I could get the cost down to $75. I bought extra things so I wouldn't have to go back to the store. I also could have found free or cheaper guns and swords.

Of course, I have enough leftover stuff to make at least 1 more full costume. I also have LOTS of tape, glue, and paint for other projects.

About the Cardboard

I started out using boxes I had in the house. I ended up buying a couple of brand new boxes because I didn't want to have any creases. New boxes cost about $6 each. If you have big enough used boxes without creases (or creases don't matter to you), you don't need to buy new boxes.

You need TWO places to work: one outside and one inside.

You need an outside place (or a very well ventilated inside place) to sand, paint, and spray paint. A well-ventilated garage with the door open will do, but be careful of paint and glue fumes. Also, protect your things with a dropcloth.

I used my carport, my deck, and several dropcloths.

You will also need a clean dry place inside where you can cut materials, tape things together, and let things dry overnight.

Before you buy materials, you need to measure your Head and your upper Body.

You're going to make the head out of a special cardboard tube that they use to pour concrete. It's called a Concrete Form and it comes in a few different sizes. Most hardware stores only carry the 8" and 12" sizes.

Instead of measuring, I just went to the hardware store and tried them on.

You also need to know the height for the lego head. You just need enough height to cover your head, so measure from the middle of your neck to the top of your head.

The best way to measure this is to hold something flat and level on top of your head and measure from there to the middle of your neck. Ask someone to help with this.

Now you have the Head Height for the head piece.

See the diagram for instructions.

1. Measure the shoulders first.
2. Get your waist size from the table in the diagram.
3. Measure the Body Height.
4. Measure the Body Depth.

Note: You can make the side pieces wider at the bottom to accommodate a belly, it just makes the math a little more complex. I have a belly, but I kept my side pieces rectangular. It just makes the whole costume look more square.

You will need the following items:

• 2 x UHaul Large mirror boxes (48 1/4” x 4 5/16” x 32 11/16”)
• 1 x 4' Round Concrete Form (12", 10" or 8" diameter depending on your head size)
• 1 x Sheet Polystyrene Insulation Board
• 1 x Can Spray Advesive
• 1 x bottle general purpose glue (anything that won't melt the styrofoam)
• 1 x Bottle Magikote
• 3 x Cans Glossy Red Paint
• 1 x Can Glossy Black Paint
• 1 x Roll Painter's Tape (blue tape)
• 3 x sheets 60-Grit sandpaper (or sanding sponge, I used both)
• 3 x sheets 180-Grit sandpaper
• 1 x package adhesive Velcro pieces
• 1 x roll Dow Styrofoam seal (3.5" x 50')
• 1 x Roll 3M Tough Duct Tape - Black (ignore the white tape in the picture)
• 1 x Pair of cheap black panty hose.
• 2 x toy guns (I bought these)
• 2 x toy swords (I bought these)
• At least 6 x Disposable foam paint brushes (a bag of these is really cheap)
• Dropcloths for Painting
• Rope or Twine for hanging pieces for painting

You will need the following tools:

• A good box cutter with several new blades
• A good thin Xacto knife with a thin blade (for cutting circles)
• Clamps or something heavy like books
• Yardstick or long ruler
• Framing square (or something square like a cake pan)
• Black Sharpie
• Silver Sharpie (optional)

The forms get dinged up the store, so try to cut off enough that you get a clean edge.

You got this measurement when you measured your head.

The piece you cut here is your new Lego Head, but we have a lot more work to do.

Insulation Board is sold in 4' x 8' sheets, but you will only need about a 2.5' square.

It might take 2 or 3 passes to get deep enough to snap the insulation board. The board will snap cleanly once you make a cut about 1/2 to 3/4 of the depth of the board. Then you can use the box cutter to finish the cut from the other side.

A NOTE ABOUT CUTTING INSULATION BOARD: Even a fresh blade may stick and tear at the board. If this happens while you're making rough cuts, it's no big deal. But when you are making final cuts, you will want to be careful. Just work slowly and use a sawing motion to get through the dense parts. FYI - this happens most when you are cutting across the grain. See the close-up picture.

The 2 squares form a rectangle. Later you will cut the rectangles, then the squares, before you cut the circles.

The picture shows that I worked with larger pieces, but 2.5' x 1.25' will be plenty big enough.

Make sure you leave a little extra foam outside the lines. The corners will snap off just like the other cuts.

Repeat for a second disc. These discs will now be used as the top and bottom of your Head.

When you do this, pay attention to the edges of the insulation and the Head. You should have a little extra foam all the way around. This helps when you start shaping the foam.

WARNING: DO NOT round over the edges yet. Just remove the extra foam in a straight line so it matches the edge of the Head.

I ended up using the power sander for the first part and then switched to hand sanding when I got closer.

Later you will line these marks up to ensure you have the discs on straight.

In the picture, this is the dashed line. Position this line about halfway into the 1st insulation board (the one closest to the Head).

Turn the top disc upside down and place the head piece on top of it.

Line up the marks you made earlier. You're just trying to make sure that the edges of the disc are still lined up with the edges of the head piece.

You should now have a circle on each disc that is smaller than the inside diameter of the Head.

The purpose of the next few steps is to trim off a little bit of the discs so we can insert the ends into the head and glue them in place. We only need about a 1/4" to glue it to the head. That's why we drew the dashed line halfway up the first disc.

Put a fresh blade in your box cutter. Set the depth to no more than a 1/4"

You need to cut into the EDGE of the disc at least 1/8" deep all the way around the disc.

The cut needs to be as straight as possible so the disc fits evenly inside the head.

WARNING: Be sure to cut OUTSIDE of the line you just drew.

This time you're cutting on the face of the disc where you traced that line inside the head.

Set your blade depth to 1/2" and carefully cut around the outside of that line. You want this cut to go deep enough that it intersects with the cut you made around the edge.

As you go, you can pull off a thin strip of insulation from the disc.

If you need to, trim any little extra bits off so the disc fits nicely. It should be snug. We want the glue to adhere nicely.

In my pictures you will notice I used some little white stryfoam discs to make the connecting nub on top of the head. I actually didn't like how this turned out and I don't recommend it. The white styrofoam is full of pits and looks terrible even after you smooth it out.

You should use more insulation board instead. Just follow the same procedure as the other discs.

• Trace 2 or 3 circles on some foam board (For 12" tube make 6" circles)
• Draw squares around the circles
• Cut out the squares
• Cut off the corners to make circles.
• Neatly and carefully trim off the excess for proper circles.

NOTE: The number and size of the circles you need depends on the size of the tube you bought and the thickness of the foam insulation board. Just use your best judgement here. I stacked two 6" circles and that worked fine. You can start with 3 circles and then see how they look.

Use a longer thinner xActo blade to cut circles into the middle of each circle.

Use the spray glue to attach the small rings to the center of the top of the head.

Test the fit and keep removing material until you can easily slip the head on and off. I wear glasses and have an enormous head, so I had to remove a lot.

MagiKote is a sealant for styrofoam. It protects the foam from the paint. Paint will eat the foam and completely ruin your head, so take your time and cover things well.

1 bottle was enough for 3 coats on my head, but it's very hard to work with that bottle.

PRO TIP: I poured the entire bottle into a paint cup. Each night I pushed a sheet of plastic wrap down into the cup until it touched the surface of the Magikote. This kept it fresh until the next day.

Don't sand it too much. You're just trying to smooth out any drips, bumps, specks of stuff.

These eye holes are your safety eye holes. They can be a little rough because they are going to be hidden most of the time by the eye mask.

I just Googled Lego Deadpool, copied the best picture I could find, and pasted it into a PowerPoint slide. Then I cropped it to just the head and stretched the image to a size that matched my costume head. A little blue painters take held it in place while I made some cuts to mark the eye holes. Then I removed the paper template and finished the cuts in the head.

NOTE: Be sure to draw the mask between the seams of cardboard.

Try to make the top and bottom evenly spaced and the two sides the same shape. I freehanded it and then had to do a lot of trimming. Save yourself some time and create a template you can print.

Use a fresh blade and be careful not to bend or fold the mask as you cut.

CAUTION: DO NOT CUT EVERY APART RIGHT NOW.

Cut down the corner of each box, preferably the corner where the ends are glued together.

Now lay your boxes out flat. DO NOT WALK ON THEM.

Find those measurements you took earlier:

• Shoulder
• Waist
• Body Height
• Body Depth
• Diameter hole in bottom of head

You will also need a measurement I call Connecting Side. You will measure this later when you draw your pieces.

Now let's see how much cardboard you have to work with.

Using a ruler, figure out where your pieces will fit best. You can use a pencil or marker to mark which pieces will become each part of your costume. You will need enough cardboard for these pieces:

• 2 x Body Faces
  (a rectangle slightly bigger than Body Height x Waist)
• 2 x Body Sides
  (a rectangle slightly bigger than Body Depth x Connecting Side)
• 1 x Body Top
  (a rectangle slightly bigger than Shoulder x Body Depth)

Remember, the cardboard piece should be bigger than you need.

1. Using a ruler, mark the CENTER POINT FOR THE WAIST.
   All the other lines are based on this, so make sure you have enough space for them.
2. Using a ruler, draw the WAIST line.
3. Use something square to draw your BODY HEIGHT Line.
   I used a framing square, but you can use anything with a 90 degree corner (e.g. cake pan, tablet, keyboard).
4. Using something square, draw your SHOULDER line.
5. Now draw 2 CONNECTING SIDES to connect the Shoulder and Waist lines.
   These are the CONNECTING SIDES I told you about.

Repeat these steps so you get 2 faces - FRONT and BACK.

Use a ruler to measure one of the CONNECTING SIDES and write that measurement down.

1. Using a ruler, Draw a line the size of the CONNECTING SIDE.
2. Use something square to draw BODY DEPTH lines at the TOP and Bottom.
3. Now draw another CONNECTING SIDE to connect the top and bottom lines.
4. Draw a smaller rectangle at the top for your armhole.
   The width of this should be a little bigger than your shoulder, but the height should be big enough for you to get your arm through. After some testing, I found that 10" x 6" was a good size for me.

Repeat these steps so you get 2 faces - LEFT and RIGHT.

1. Using a ruler, draw a SHOULDER line.
2. Using a square, draw 2 BODY DEPTH lines.
3. Now connect the BODY DEPTH lines with another SHOULDER line.
4. Using a ruler, find the center of the shoulder.
5. Using a square to draw a CENTERING LINE in the middle of the body top (see diagram)
   Make this line the same length as the diameter of your concrete form.
6. Repeat this using the center of the body depth.
7. The two CENTERING LINES should be the same length and should intersect in the center of the Body Top (see photo).
8. Now find something round that is roughly the same size as the hole in the bottom of your Lego Head.
   (I used a cake pan.)
9. When you lay it over the CENTERING LINES you should be able to see a little bit of the lines sticking out. If you don't, just extend the lines a little using a ruler.
10. Center your round thing over the CENTERING LINES and trace around your round thing.

PRO TIP: Put some scrap cardboard underneath your pieces as you cut. This will protect your work surface.

Use the blue painter tape to attach your pieces and test the fit. If you're not happy, now is the time to fix it.

You'll notice a lot of mistakes in these pictures. This was my test run with crappy cardboard.

As you attach pieces with tape, press the tape firmly but don't crush or bend the cardboard. I built it in this order, but you may find a better way.

1. Attach BODY FACE 1 to BODY TOP.
2. Attach BODY FACE 1 to SIDE 1.
3. Attach SIDE 1 to BODY TOP.
4. Attach SIDE 2 to BODY FACE 1.
5. Attach SIDE 2 to BODY TOP.
6. Attach BODY FACE 2 to BODY TOP.
7. Attach BODY FACE 2 to SIDE 1.
8. Attach BODY FACE 2 to SIDE 2.

Tape the bottom edges.Tape the Arm Holes.Tape the Head Hole.

This was a little tricky. Easiest way is to lay a small strip across part of the hole and then make cuts in the tape so it folds over the edge and sticks to the inside (see photo).

I'm not going to teach you how to spray paint here. Here's a good video of how to do it.

Here are the basics:

1. Clean off any dust or dirt.
2. Apply first coat.
3. Dry for at least 6 hours.
4. Lightly sand.
5. Apply second coat.
6. Dry and sand.
7. Apply final coat.
8. Dry for 24 hours.

I do have one tip. HANG YOUR PIECES.

1. If you can, tie a tight string between 2 poles so you can hand the body and head from it.
2. Cut out a scrap of insulation board that fits in the head but not through the top.
3. Cut out another one that fits in the body but larger than the neck hole.
4. Poke a small hole in each scrap.
5. Push a long string through the hole and tie it to a screwdriver (or pencil or stick).
6. Now hang your piece from the line you put up.

This makes it a lot easier to hit all the sides and see everything in the same light.

MAKE SURE YOU COVER STUFF WITH DROP CLOTHES within 10 feet of where you are painting.

Don't forget to paint your toy weapons! The toys I bought were all kinds of grey and orange. 1 coat of glossy black paint was enough to make them perfect for this costume.

I didn't find an easy way to do this. In fact I did it twice, so feel free to find your own way.

The first thing to know is that you need to stretch the panty hose a little so you can see through it. If you just lay flat over the mask, it will be very hard to see through.

1. Cut out a piece of panty hose roughly the size of the mask.
2. Hold it up to your eyes and stretch it until you can see through it. This is how much you will need to stretch it as you attach it to the mask.
3. Line a bowl with some tin foil.
4. Spray a bunch of glue on the bottom.
5. Use a small brush to apply glue to one edge of the mask.
6. CAREFULLY attach the panty hose, making sure you don't slide it across the glue.
7. Use a clamp or something to hold the panty hose in place.
   Don't damage the paint on the front. I used some magnets I had laying around. Between the stickiness of the glue and the magnets, I was able to stretch the panty hose enough to see through it.
8. After you secure one side, apply glue to the other side.
9. Now carefully stretch the panty hose to the other side and secure it the same way
   Again, be careful not drag the panty hose across the glue.
10. Once the 2 sides are secure, check the front to be sure you haven't gotten glue on the panty hose that shows.
11. Now return to the back side of the mask and apply glue to the top edge under the panty hose.
12. Pull the panty hose into place near the edge and press it into the glue and secure it the same way you did the sides.
13. Apply glue to the center between the eye holes and secure the panty hose there.
14. Apply glue to the bottom edge and and secure the panty hose there.
15. Let dry for 24 hours.

Note: If you don't have a way to secure the panty hose all the way around, you can do this in stages, letting the glue dry overnight between each stage.

The Velcro adhesive isn't strong enough to hold the dots on the panty hose, so you need use some glue (e.g. Gorilla Glue) to attach the dots to the mask.

1. Attach the plastic hook side of the dots to the mask. I used 2 center dots.
2. Let the dots dry on the mask.
3. Now attach the fuzzy fabric dots to the dots on the mask.
4. Carefully position the mask over the eyeholes in the head.
   Keep it straight and level.
5. Press the mask onto the onto the head to secure the fuzzy dots.
6. Carefully pull on the mask and remove it. The fuzzy dots should stay on the head.

Now you have an easy way of improving your visibility.

It's a minor detail, but I did it.

You're going to need the bowl, foil, glue, and a small brush for this.

1. Line a bowl with tin foil and set aside.
2. Wrap layers of the foam seal around the inside of the head until you've got 2-3 inches.
3. Try it on for size and add or remove layers until your head just fits inside the foam. You want the foam to carry the weight, not the Lego head itself.
4. Once you have the size right on the bundle, look to see if the bundle can be seen through the eyes.
5. If you can see the foam through the eye holes, use the boxcutter to cut away the foam so it can't be seen. I cut out a notch of about 2 x 8 inches.
6. Spray a bunch of glue on the foil.
7. Carefully pull the bundle out, but don't let the it unroll.
8. Use the brush to apply dots of glue between the layers.
9. You don't need full coverage, just a few dots between layers to hold them together.
10. Use some blue tape to hold it together while the glue dries.
11. Test the fit. The Lego head should turn when you turn your head.
12. If it doesn't you can repeat this process to make a second layer of foam.

I left my padding loose, so I can fit it for other people later on, but you can use glue or velcro to attach your bundles to the inside of the Lego head.

CAUTION: Do not wrap tape all the way around.

The body shape will cause the tape to go in different directions.

So apply tap to each side separately.

1. Apply the tape straight up the front on both sides.
2. Apply more tape over the top to the back.
3. On the back, cross the lines of tape to make an X.

1. Lay the Lego body on it's back.
2. Find a place on the harness where the guns look good to you.
3. Make 2 small marks on the body - under the gun on either side of the trigger.
   Use a silver sharpie if you have one, but any marker will do.
4. Move the gun out of the way and use the box cutter to cut 2 small slits along the marks you made.
5. Tie the gun to the body.
   Note: The guns I bought included some nylon straps so I cut those up and pushed them through the body and tied them on the inside. You can use string, wire, or anything secure.
6. Repeat for the second gun.

Use the same process as the guns to attach your swords. The swords I bought came with a plastic holder. I attached the holder to the body making sure I wrapped the straps around the sword hilts so they wouldn't fall off.