Mudkip Costume

My 14 year old son CJ begged for me to make him a Mudkip (from Pokémon game) costume, so I couldn't let him down. He showed me pictures of what a Mudkip looks like, since I had no idea. I decided to use an old store-bought animal pattern I had in my stash for the body. I had to alter it for the stomach patch. The fabric I used is a fleece fabric that was on sale at the fabric store. I made the pattern for the fin-tail, and that big thing (fin??) on the head, as well as the orange star shaped cheek fins. I cut and shaped dense foam and then used batting over the foam to stuff all of the fins. The head, I had to make a structure for underneath the fabric. I used coat hanger wire to shape it round, and cardboard circles to help keep the shape of the wire. I covered the structure with polyester batting, and then draped the fleece fabric over the structure, pinned and cut the fabric until I got it to fit just right, then sewed it. Once I figured out the placement for where the eyes would go so my son could actually see through them, I cut out circles from the head. For the eyes, I used a very thin/sheer, see-thru, but stiff buckram that I colored in with black permanent marker on both sides and hot glued them on. For the final details on the fins, I stitched on thin black ribbon for the lines. The nostrils are just dots made with a black permanent marker. All of his friends, and just about every kid who saw him on Halloween loved his costume!