// October 28th, 2011 // No Comments » // Holidays, Personal Crap
So I put some time and effort into my costume for work this year. As Halloween creeped up, I knew that I wanted to do something with paper mache. It had been years since I did anything with it, but always had fond memories of working with it. Plus, it started further back than me just working on it — my earliest costumes my dad made for me were all paper mache (Pac-Man, Super Grover, E.T., etc.)
I also toyed with wanting to do a father/son combo costume. Originally, we were going to go with Curious George/The Man with the Yellow hat. But that didn’t work out. Then, we went with Ghostbuster/Ghost.
There were really two crucial parts to pulling off the Ghostbusters costume — a jump suit and the proton pack. The proton pack would be my chance to utilize paper mache. The jump suit would be a scour of local and Internet locales for jumpsuits or coveralls.
I did a little research online, finding another example of someone who had done a paper mache proton pack. I used some of their photos, along with this photo to build. I didn’t want to directly copy, but instead use them as inspiration and do my own interpretation and creation of the classic Ghostbusters movie prop.
Concurrently to doing research on the proton pack, I was scouring a set of useable coveralls. None of the local thrift shops had any, and I found nothing perfect online. If I had more time, it would have been nice to check out some military surplus stores, as the jumpsuits actually used in the movies were Air Force jumpsuits.
I finally settled on an Amazon Marketplace seller and got these. They barely arrived in time, and sadly were darker than what was pictured online, but they worked. I printed out a pair of Ghostbusters logos for the sleeves, and created a custom “Keefer” name badge using several examples online of the badges of “Venkman,” “Stanz” and “Spengler.” Luckily, most of the letters I needed were in those originals.
A little over a week before the costume needed to be worn, I made a trek to the local dollar store, where I got four small push lights, a styrofoam tortilla holder, a flashlights. These were all crucial parts to be integrated into the proton pack.
Just six days before needing to have the whole costume ready, I started on the proton pack. The base was a cardboard box and that dollar store tortilla holder. Then, all the little bits and pieces were scoured from around the house — several toilet paper rolls, a styrofoam cup’s lid, a pencil, an old prescription vial, and a ton of caps from various bottles, along with little boxes (including a bike tire tube) and some shaped/cut cardboard.
The neutrino wand was a a combination of a box, the plastic mast from those car flags people fly on game days, while the handle was that $1 flashlight.
All the pieces were affixed together with masking tape. It took a fair amount of time to find and assemble — the better part of a Sunday afternoon.
Then came the first layer of paper mache.
It was a standard paper mache process — strips of torn newspaper dipped in a flour and water mixture, and covered all over the pack and neutrino wand.
A few days later, the second layer was computer printer paper, which I had read would assist in the painting process — allowing for less layers of paint, and a more uniform look.
This is where I need to warn everyone to allow enough time for each layer to fully dry. It’ll take longer than you want and anticipate. After my computer paper layer, I had a big fan blowing on it overnight and the better part of the next day.
Even so, I still used a full can of Krylon’s satin black to cover the proton pack and its attached accessories. It was really messy and smelly as well.
I bought a can of satin clear coat too, but ran out of time to apply it. Instead, I had to break out the glue gun and add the wiring and polish. I had an old desktop PC that’s been in our garage for several years, and I basically gutted it all its wires, LEDs and a few circuit boards. Using the aforementioned Internet-sourced photos, I glued the wires. I also added the four touch lights as the cyclotron.
On the back of the pack, I used an old backpack’s straps. Using a liberal amount of hot glue, these affixed well.
Then, some warning labels/stickers added the finishing touches. The wires and decals really added the polish to make it look good.
Overall, I ended up with a really unique and cool looking costume. I’m really happy and satisfied with the whole thing. Sure, there are things I’d change or improve on if I were to do it again, but overall I’m really pleased.
Oh, and at the last minute, with time running out, Tyler went as Scooby Doo. It was a combination of just running out of time, and Tyler seeing the Scooby Doo costume at the store. He was gong to be cute no matter what. I’m just going to have to wait to do a father/son duo costume.
We had a whirlwind day. My morning had the contest, the contest voting (no, sadly, I didn’t make the top three).
The afternoon had us at Tyler’s daycare for a party, then trick-or-treating at Amanda’s office, and finishing at our office — a nice way to end a week that included a night getting home at 12:30a from work, and another around 10:30p. Bleh!
Below are my individual shots and the group shots from Centerline’s costume contest, along with a cool shot of my proton pack sitting at my desk, just waiting to bust some ghosts.
With the holidays right around the corner, are you trying to figure out what to get that special Van Halen fan in your life? 
