DIY Gorilla Costume
I needed to make a simplified DIY Gorilla Costume for my son's school music concert. They where they were doing a little play adapted from the book, Where the Wild things Are. His amazing music teacher told the kids to where black as the base and add hats etc to make a simple animal costume.
When he told me he wanted to be a gorilla I was thinking there was NO WAY we could pull this off. BUT I got thinking and I tried my hand at making a gorilla face on a hat, and, honestly, I was so excited and surprised at how well it worked!
Today I'm going to tell you about my process making this simple gorilla costume. Even though this won't be a full tutorial you'll get a glimpse and hopefully it will inspire you be adventurous and try your hand at something similar.
More Simple Costumes to make
Making the Gorilla Hat
Starting with a well worn hat to use as the base, I used some gray faux leather, or 'vinyl', and furry black fleece to make the Gorilla hat. I started by cutting a long oval out of the faux leather that was about an inch bigger in width than the brim. I used binding clips to hold the vinyl at the corners where the brim meets the hat. I stretched it across the brim and made a couple of folds for the eyebrows and forehead.
As I stretched the vinyl seemed to naturally bunch up and not lay flat. I pinched the excess between the eyes and the nose started to form. I realized I was onto something but I hadn't cut the oval wide enough so had to I recut it. After I got the new forehead to lay like I wanted it I added some hot glue to hold it in place. I formed the nose and added glue where the eyes would be so they would stay laying flat on the brim.
I continued to manipulate the folds to make cheek bones and a depression where the nose would be. I just kept working at it and looking at pictures of a gorilla face as I went, adding hot glue under the parts of the vinyl that were touching the brim of the hat. I was super excited to see how realistic it looked. It was actually really tricky to add the hot glue after positioning the vinyl to where I wanted it. If I had more time glueing slowly with Tacky glue might have been a better option.
There was a lot of extra vinyl at the top of the forehead that would not lay flat so I cut slits in it and overlapped it a little so that it would form to the hat better.
To finish it off I added a square of fur draped over the forehead and hot glued it around the top and sides. Then I just stuffed the extra into the hole in the back. It doesn't look too pretty on the under side. I folded the extra vinyl over the end of the brim and hot glued it in place.
Once the fur was on I added some simple ears to the sides. This took a little trial and error to get the sizing correct but its basically a half circle with the round edge folded over and glued back.
Then I pleated the middle to get the look I wanted. And clearly I couldn't decide which direction looked best for the pleat to go so each ear ended up being different. I was in a rush so I just left it. Which way is the right way? You decide!
Making the Gorilla Shirt
The shirt was really easy to make. I opened up the vinyl and notice that the folded line kind of already looked like a muscles on a chest, can you see it? I lightly drew a chest using the fold as the center.
Once I cut it out, I folded it in half to get the sides symmetrical.
I first used a glue stick to hold the chest in place on the t-shirt.
Then topstitched all the way around it and down the center and added some extra stitch lines to make the stomach muscles.
It was perfect! It held up well for his performance too. I'm so glad I tried to tackle this project. I love making halloween costumes! They challenge my creativity and the small successes along the way are so fun. Plus they are so low pressure, you don't have to finish them nicely or be perfect in your sewing.
So, if you are tempted to try to make a tricky costume, do it! Try to simplify it and have fun!! I have to make a Boba Fett costume this week. Wish me luck! I don't have time to make an amazing one so I told my son its going to be a very simplified and he's on board and having fun helping me plan it an painting the different parts. I'll keep you posted on how it turns out.
