‘Tis the season for costumes. This year I decided to make my Halloween costume, and it was fun! “How did you make such an awesome viking costume?” you ask? Let me break it down for you.
Chain mail (sweater, silver spraypaint): Got a knitted sweater from Goodwill (you can always find one from your own collection, but I didn’t have one on me). The weave had a chain mail look to it, so it worked perfectly. I cut the sleeves off of my sweater because it is hot in Austin, Texas. Then I spray painted the sweater silver.
Helmet (milk gallon, newspaper, duct tape, foam heart from Hobby Lobby): Cut a milk gallon in half. This will be the base of your helmet that you will build around. Now, my head is big, so I cut slits in the corners of the half-milk-jug. Then I wrapped newspaper around the milk jug, mostly to extend the vertical length of the helmet to fit and look better. Use duct tape to form around the newspaper/plastic milk jug base. Next, cut holes on the sides (1-2 inch diameter). Cut the Styrofoam heart you bought from Hobby lobby in half and insert one horn in each side. Make sure you glue or tape these on tight. Your helmet is done, unless you want to add an outer layer of paper mache plus spray paint (this will give your helmet a smoother and shinier look than duct tape)
Left: Styrofoam Heart from Hobby Lobby (used for horns). Right: Helmet in progress.
Leather Straps/Belt (pleather, cardboard, stapler, yarn): For the belt, I got a sheet of pleather, cut it to be about 3 inches tall, and stapled it, then put a piece of silver painted cardboard over where I stapled as the belt buckle. For the arm straps, I cut pleather around my arms, hole-punched 3 holes on each side, then tied them to my arms with 3 pieces of brown yarn parallel to each other (don’t use 1 string to tie together in all holes like a shoe, it will pull at each end and look bad).
Shield (Styrofoam cylinder, paint, brads): For the shield, I bought a Styrofoam cylinder from Hobby Lobby, painted it brown (for wood effect), then spray painted the outer ring silver (for metal effect) but it ate part of the outer edges, so try to use regular paint if you can. Then I used brads and poked them into the shield, just for details. On 2 opposite ends, I poked the brads all the way through the Styrofoam and through a Velcro strap to keep the shield strap in place. I attached the shield to my back by having the Velcro strap of the shield to a Velcro strap that went around my back (not pictured). You don’t have to do this, you can always just hold it.
Left: Styrofoam cylinder and cones from Hobby Lobby. Right: Painting the shield.
Fur from Hobby Lobby
Misc: The blonde fur I put above my boots was just blonde fur I bought from Hobby Lobby and tied to the back of my legs. I wore sweat pants, high socks, and boots that I owned to complete the costume.
Test Drive Month is a 5″ x 8.5″ church bulletin insert graphic that is being featured for the month of February to promote volunteerism within the church by “test driving” an activity. Everything in this image was created by me from scratch in Photoshop.
