How to Make an Alien Costume

Whether you are preparing for Halloween or an UFO Convention, you may want to make an alien costume to wear. You can get as complex as you want with your costume, even building a custom design from scratch. By making your own costume, you will have an original look and can control the size and details.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Wire
• Black body suit
• Liquid latex or body paint
• Glow sticks
• Prop kit
• Fabric

1. Decide what kind of alien you want to reproduce in your costume. You can use "realistic" aliens like grays and reptoids, or you can use your imagination to make yourself alien-like.
2. Draw up a design of your costume. If you are replicating a movie alien, try to find as many photos as possible, so you can see the costume from every angle.
3. Make a budget. When you start finding all the great accessories that can be added to your costume, your spending will quickly sky rocket.
4. Pick fabric for your costume. While green immediately comes to mind when thinking about aliens, you can choose any color you want. Shiny fabric will catch the light more than matte cottons and add an out of this world flair. If you need to create elements out of rubber, you may need to special order the material or pre-molded pieces.
5. Focus on the details. It's the small things that separate your costume from the pack. Consider using glow sticks or body paint to enhance your costume.
6. Buy a close fitting black body suit to wear under your costume. You can paint the visible portions of the suit with liquid latex to add texture to the costume. You can also glue rubber pieces to the suit if needed.
7. Plan to wire antennas, tails and wings so that they protrude from the body correctly.
8. Try your costume on frequently during the building process. You want your costume to be comfortable, so you should keep a handle on the weight and thickness of the costume. You may need to adjust your design to allow you to walk or move your extremities.

Tips & Warnings

• Look for movie alien kits at prop stores. These kits can be modified or adapted to create your own alien costume.
• Don't forget you'll probably have to go to the bathroom while wearing the suit. You need to create a Velcro opening, have separate bottoms or make sure your costume is easy to remove in a small public stall.