Hound

Finished product. Some kid’s costumes were stylishly minimal, but not my kids'

Paper board test of the chest design. When I’m happy with the paper test I cut it apart again and use it as a template to cut the foam.

First I measure the angles where the paper parts meet. Write that down and then cut it up and trace the template onto EVA foam.

I have to cut the foam at the exact angle I measured for it all to fit together as designed

Testing those hand-cut angles

Foam all glued together. Success …

Adding details and planning out the front grill design

Chest piece base is ready. Testing out first shoulder design, which was a big fail, and the helmet, which is a good start

These are high-brightness lights I bought at auto zone. Designing the reflective enclosure for them

Fitting the lights into the enclosure

Adding more reflective foil and gluing the light assembly in place

Adding a bike reflector to diffuse the light a little... it was too blinding to go trick or treating with

Lights and grill installed and functional… additional details added, including side reflectors

Failed shoulder, that’s what happens when you don’t do your paper board design first. New paper design looks good though.

Time to cut out the new shoulder design on foam

And here it is glued together. That’s a good base shape. Gotta add some details…

Adding a little grill vent design to the shoulders and some edging details

Coming together nicely. TV is required for focus and distraction because I work at opposite extremes at all times

More paper plans in the works, wine also required

Gotta add some lighting details to the shoulders, kinda scary to cut such a big hole on something that took so long to make

More reflectors with small LEDs added to a hole I drilled out in the back

All assembled

…and functional

Quite a pair, wouldn’t you say?

I originally planned to use these Power Wheels tires that I removed from a vehicle that was tossed on the sidewalk at just the right time. I thought it was fate…

…but they were way too heavy so I had to design my own tires from foam instead of plastic. This is the first test to try out feasibility

Happy with the first tire test, but realized I need a more solid looking wheel, so I moved on to the next step with a new design and flatter circumference.

Here’s the new design, all glued together, I think the shape came out just right compared to the initial test

Testing out some tread designs using scrap foam, I think that’ll work, but they’re not very neat looking

Cut out tons, and I mean tons, of these little details to wrap all the way around the tires. Thankfully, I only went with two tires instead of four.

Here are the tires with all their treads glued on. This was fun to figure out how to space out as evenly as possible. :/

Tires are mostly done. Just have to do a few touchups.

Rounding off the outer treads really made it feel more finished

Time to start working on some support structure for those wheels

Here’s the skeleton of the support structure that will strap over the shoulders

Here is the finished support structure with refined shoulder harness, the old ones were too short and sharp and dug into the shoulder, this curve is much more ergonomic

Here’s a finished wheel painted with rubber paint (Plastidip)

They fit like a backpack and the whole thing worked out well, PVC pipe and foam tires are much lighter than the heavy plastic ones from the power wheels

Let’s jump ahead a little to the upper arm part, you get the idea…paper model to start, measure angle, trace on foam, cut and glue together…

Test fitting the upper arm and shoulder connection

Time to start on the lower arm section. Paper design for the win!

Here is the reverse angle of the lower arm section

Fast forward a few days and here they are all done, these are the lower arm parts with elbow shield

In this angle, you can see the furniture foam I added inside to help them stay in place while being very comfortable to wear and adjustable.

Now I have to start on the feet, they have got to be comfortable… so I went with some crocs. Crocs are easy to work with because they fit several size feet, they require no tying, and they’re actually very comfortable, plus they take the glue nicely.

Adding on the toes to the front end

Sneak peek into what it looks like while I work… trust me, I know what I’m doing (not really)

Is that the knee cap? I think so. We’ll see, I guess

Lower leg section "c"… the lower leg was made in three parts

Oh yeah, I still need to work on that helmet! There, that’ll buy me some time

In fact I’ll call it done here because I'm all out of time

Halloween fast approaching, taking inventory of what I have… unfortunately this will have to do because it's the night before and there’s no time to do the rest of the torso. I still have to paint this and two other costumes!

Fast forward to Halloween…I was painting it the night before so I couldn’t do a good job on that, mostly just a solid color