Autobot Hound Costume

This costume is the Autbot, Hound from the Transformers Universe video game. I made my son a costume of Bastion last year and had to step it up a little this year, I think I might have stepped sideways instead. I didn't get in all the details I wanted to, but it turned out just as good as the previous one and he was very happy with it.

I actually finished it DAY OF halloween, an hour before he needed it for his parade at school, and that morning I had hacked together critical structural components to keep it on him that I didn't have time to test before he put the whole thing on for the first time in front of all his friends! Oy, I narrowly averted disaster because it held up spectacularly.

This costume is made almost entirely out of EVA foam mats, cut apart. Some parts are heat-shaped (like the helmet) and it's all glued together with contact cement. I used PVC pipes to build a frame to support the wheels. The original plan was to use the wheels from a discarded Power Wheels vehicle, but those plastic tires were SO heavy he wouldn't have lasted long wearing it so I only kept the rims and made the tires 100% from scratch out of EVA foam. Cutting each individual piece to glue on as the treads was a nightmare, but it turned out well. It was then sprayed with Plastidip to make them look like real rubber (because plastdip is actually spray-on rubber paint!).

His head lights are made from bicycle reflectors that I installed LED lights into so they turn on and light the way ahead at night. The turn signals on his shoulders also light up with LEDs that I installed and wired up myself.

Everyone was pretty impressed with it, but I feel like a loser because this costume has 50% of the detail that I originally wanted to build. Life has a way of popping your balloons though...