Keaton and The Indominus Rex Costume

We built the Indominus Rex for my son Keaton who has apparently tamed the vicious Indominus in order to get around.

Indominus is built around Keaton's wheelchair. This has been a tradition for us to build whatever costume he wants around his wheelchair since he was 3 and as siblings came for their wheelchairs as well. This has lead us to start a non-profit called Magic Wheelchair. You can check that out here magicwheelchair.org. It's been a blast and a challenge every to build whatever the kiddos want us to build from Indominus to a pirate ship to the mighty and fearless Toothless from How to Train A Dragon.

Indominus is made using techniques I learned from The Stan Winston School of Character Arts. They are also a HUGE partner with Magic Wheelchair mentoring our volunteer builders/artists. Indominus was built using foam fabrication techniques working with both closed and open cell foams. You start with a scale sculpt or model of what you are going to build and create patterns off the sculpt much like you would create a sewing pattern. Taking the 3d sculpt into 2d patterns you then glue these patters together giving the structure. We then added 1/4" upholstery foam for skin texture and details. Created the eyes, added closed cell foam teeth, spikes and other details. The legs and arms are solid pieces of upholstery foam 6-8 inches thick carved into the shapes we needed for the character. Details added in with cut out foam scales and carving into the foam itself. The tail is constructed the same way with upholstery foam skin added, closed cell foam spikes added and details carved in. Painted with latex paints. We built a skeleton internal structure for the legs, built a "hip" joint of sort so we could connect the legs to the wheels to achieve some "life-like" movement when Keaton rolls!!! The eyes are made with a photoshopped image of an eye set in a plastic dome filled with a clear apoxy resin. All these techniques are definitely not my own. I learned from the best!! It was a blast to build for sure and took approx. 150-200 hours. Someone more capable could do it quicker I'm sure!!! It's such a blast to fabricate!!! I love it!! I love the challenge and I love what it has allowed me to do. Leading ultimately to building a non-profit that has volunteers all across the country that build for other amazing kiddos and families like mine!!! AWESOME!!! EPIC!!!!