Minion Costume

This is my first Instructable, so forgive me if it's a bit naff. The whole thing was made mostly from stuff I had lying around. To make this from scratch would be pretty expensive. The hat hides the head of the costume wearer, so that the minion seems shorter than the person wearing the costume. The added advantage of the hat is you don't have to bother trying to make the dome of the head.

Materials

• Foam mattress topper (body)
• Swimming noodles (arms and head support)
• Hoola hoops (hat and body structure)
• Expanding squirty foam (body structure)
• Duct tape... lots of it! (hands, hat and glasses)
• Wire (head)
• Two cans of Yellow spray paint (body)
• Silver spray paint
• Red spray paint
• Two circular gift/hat boxes (eyes)
• Wire coat hangers (arms)
• Blue fabric (legs)
• Black fabric (hat )
• Syrofoam/Polystyrene or foam packaging (teeth)
• Laminating sheets
• Hot glue sticks

Tools

• Hot glue gun
• Scissors
• Needle and thread
• Computer, printer and laminator
• Pliers
• Tape measure

This costume is intended for someone about 6 feet tall and was made from a rough sketch showing how the proportions match up. The actual costume is about 7 feet tall to the top of the hat.

Take the mattress topper and cut it to the size you need. I used these dimensions: 51 inches x 78 inches

Hot glue the seem down the short side of the mattress topper or use spray glue. Tape the seem in place until the glue sets. Cut hoola hoops to fit the internal diameter and use squirty insulation foam to hold them in place. Leave to set. Apply two coats of yellow spray paint.

Use part of a hoola hoop and jam it in the end of a pool noodle. Create a hoop that is smaller than the tube of the minion's body. I made my hoop 53 inches (ish). Tape the whole thing in place and use wire to sew the noodle to the mattress topper.

Use pool noodles, coat hanger wire and duct tape to make the arms and hands.Cut holes in the sides of the body and rig the arms with coat hangers so that you can articulate the arms by waggling the ends of the coat hangers, which should line up with your hips approximately. The minions 'shoulders' - where the arms go through the body, are roughly where your hips are.

Get two circular boxes and paint them silver.

Google 'minion eyes' in image search, or go here. Print the eyes to fit the circular boxes. Laminate the eyes, cut them and stick them on to the silver boxes. Trim the boxes to match the curvature of the body. Staple each of the circular boxes together and use duct tape to secure the whole assembly to the head.

Cut a mouth out of the foam. Keep the excess foam to create the tongue.

Trim the foam you cut out to create the mouth into a tongue shape. Use spray red paint and spray contact cement to stick it to the costume. You can make teeth from styrofoam packaging and glue into place with hot glue or contact cement.

Use several hoola hoops to create a larger hoop by pulling apart the hoola hoops and jamming the smaller tubes inside them into the other hoola hoops.Cut a circle of fabric slightly bigger than your hoop. Preferably sew it all together. I taped it because I was running out of time before halloween!

Do some math, and figure out the size of the base of the cone that you want, then use about a third of a circle to create the cone shape. Again, use hoola hoops to make the hoop and sew it all if you have time.Duct tape works, for a while at least, but then falls off and leaves a sticky residue.

The blue dungarees are basically a tube that extends slightly below the base of the body and they are sewn up between the feet. The shoulder straps were just sewn onto the foam as were the dungarees. That's it. Oh yeah, climb in through one of the legs, then get someone to help you put the hat on top of the costume. Eye holes are optional. You might be able to see through the material depending on what you use for the hat.

Enjoy.