airsurfing: LEGO Anakin Skywalker costume

I'm a big LEGO fan, so I thought it would be cool to make a LEGO costume for Halloween one year! Episode III had just come out so I did LEGO Anakin, using one of the mini-figures I got with a LEGO kit I had.

It took two years to finish the costume- I ran out of time the first year. I improved the design anyways and it really helped to construct it with more time. I could see, turn my head, walk, even run in the costume. Everybody was surprised when this giant LEGO man came walking out into the courtyard that day at the Halloween party at work!

I designed it so I could take it apart and transport it easy. The thing is made mainly of foam, fabric and foam-core board,... and alot of hot glue! The body is simply a sandwich-board design made of foamcore that hangs on my shoulders. The hands are gloves that have LEGO-hands glued onto them. The legs have a pair of sneakers mounted into them, so anybody can wear it. You just step into the shoes and off you go! (once you learn how to walk in it.)

The head is foam pieces stacked and glued together. I could see out of the mouth opening. When I started painting the hair, I realized that if I simply painted the face, the texture wouldn't be smooth enough to make it look like a giant toy, so I covered the face with fabric. It looked pretty good that way, nice and smooth!

The lightsaber is a blue FX saber from Master Replicas. To make it look more like a LEGO saber, I wrapped it in bubble-wrap which made it look thicker and still let the light shine through.

My buddy Tommy dressed up as the real Anakin! We had fun dueling it out at the party!

There were a bunch of cool costumes that year! It's always fun to see how creative everybody is! Again, I didn't win anything in the costume contest. The "judges", who they always pick from a department we've never even heard of, always seem to vote for their friends, who we also have never heard of! Maybe they thought I bought it. However,my fellow Simpsonite and friend Karen Carnegie won in one category that year. She dressed up as a birthday cake... table and all! Woo-hoo! Represent!

Here is the min-figure I used as a model for the costume. Like I said, I had to open his mouth so I could see out of it. The rest is pretty much the same as the figure.

LEGO Anakin now stands watch over my game room. I improved the look of the lightsaber with the help of my friend/Simpsonite Nancy Kruse. She wanted me to join her troupe she was heading up for the annual Doo-Daa parade here in L.A. that year. You couldn't see the saber glow in bright light, so Nancy suggested that I cover it with blue cello-wrap they use to package flowers with. It worked! It glowed blue in the sunshine and even bluer in the dark!

Since LEGO Ani doesn't move while he's on display in the game room, I made 2 fake arms using foam rollers and hung them with bungee cords so you can fight him. Anakin's good hand can be chopped off if you hit him the right way! I hollowed out one of the arms and stuffed a red sock inside after it was mounted to the hand. If you cut it off, you can simply "reload" it!