blog #345 >> Samurai Zack!

With cardboard, paint, glue and a lot of imagination, you can make nearly anything...

I'm afraid this will be a very long post. There's just so much to say and so many good pictures to post. Well, here it goes.

This is the samurai costume my sister Carrie and I made for my nephew Zack, for an upcoming costume ball. It's the result of over 24 hours of sewing, cutting, painting, and gluing. I went up to her house Friday night and we turned her basement and garage into the samurai armor making zone. We had three computers researching authentic armor, swords, patterns and more. We had the sewing machine going and the glue gun ready. I came, we worked, and around midnight, we weren't even close to being finished. Well, I wasn't too keen about driving the hour long drive home at 1am, just to come back in the morning. So I spent the night. It was kinda fun. It was like staying in a bed and breakfast with themed rooms. There's the camping room, the oriental room, the bathroom, the Lego room and many more. I got to sleep in the "Lord of the Rings" room. We started back to work first thing the next morning and we finally completed it around dinner time.

The final product. Samurai Zack.


Costume without the armor. Thanks Kate for finding us the awesome jacket! It was perfect!





Our first step was finding the supplies. We used: poster board for the armor plates and scabbard, foam core board for the hat and sword, brads for the rivets, grommets for tying the armor on, black cotton cording for the ties, a dollar tree helmet for the hat, rust-oleum hammered metal paint to the give the armor an aged look, spray glue, hot glue, gold paint, an assortment of fabrics, paints, tapes and more.... oh, and a whole LOT of duct tape.



Gluing brads for rivets on the helmet before painting.

Zack and my sister Carrie punching holes for the grommets.

Painting the shadows into the armor.

Wrapping the sword hilt.

The painted armor panels. I had brought an old bag of clothes for my sister that I had packed weeks ago, and in it was this old straw beach mat which worked perfectly for the armor. Such a happy accident!


Sewing the edging on.

The finished sword hilt and scabard.


The finished armor.

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And below was our inspiration for this fantastic costume.

This guy made his samurai costume entirely out of rubber maid garbage cans and rubber stoppers.


This guy has a really great samurai armor pattern here.


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