Creating Wall-E

OK, my 7 yr old has had her share of awesome Halloween ideas, but this year I believe she maxed me out. She loved the movie Wall-E and has wanted to be Wall-E for Halloween since seeing it. So being the good mom, I'll indulge my beautiful baby and create a Wall-E costume. I knew I was going to need a box for the body and I figured another couple little boxes to go over her feet, some empty toilet paper rolls stuck on a hat for the eyes and voila...that'd be it!

NOT!! Believe me when I say that this costume took over 22 hours to make and would not have been done without the help of a friend who is a detail oriented fanatic (sorry Mike!) and a carpenter.

In the above picture is the goggles painted white and covered and doused with hot glue to make the black cardboard wrap around it and hold. Its not quite finished in the pic, but we glue plastic circles around the clear circles in the lens to look like the binoculars he has as eyes in the movie.

The black tracks were make of cardboard and the gears are pressed cardboard containers hot glued to a cardboard surface. 1/4 strips of cardboard were cut and hot glued around the outside to resemble the rubber track.




The box itself is painted yellow the exterior house paint (it rains here after all!) and spray painted with rust colored primer to look old. I used dryer venting for the arms and some velcro monitering belts for shoulder harnesses glued inside the box to help with the weight of it. But it is still pretty heavy.



This is the front with an opening cut into it so she can push out her candy box when she goes to each house. The tracks are bolted, yes, bolted to the sides.





Here I've finished the painting on the front. Cory did the computer LCD screen for me (thank you, thank you!!) and then Mike glued and sewed the oven mitts to the dryer venting and to the box so they wouldnt move.



The finished product is a hit with Tici. She loves it and I'm thinking all the late nights and expense were worth it to see her face light up and hear from the neighborhood kids how "cool" and "awesome" Wall-E looks. But next year, she's wearing a dress!