"Dino Bones" T-Rex Skeleton Costume

My 6 year old son is obsessed with Jurassic world and wanted to be a T-Rex dinosaur for Halloween this year. My husband and I like to make homemade costumes but we didn't quite know how we were going to pull this one off. We got the idea from a mini 3D puzzle my son gave out as party favors at his birthday party. We did an online search for Large 3D puzzles and found one that we thought was just right. We could have cut all the pieces out by hand but my husband is a former sheet metal worker and was able to use a DFX file to cut the pieces out on the CNC water jet. We measured my son and modified the file size so that the dinosaur's legs would be almost as tall as him and increased the overall size 25% to make it larger. We wanted the dinosaur to be Large and ominous and at 9ft long and over 6ft tall it definitely was! It took over 4 hours to be cut out on the water jet and we still had to cut some pieces out by hand because they needed to be modified. We also cut all of the slits so that the pieces would fit snug and tight together.

Now that we knew how we were going to make the dinosaur we needed to figure out what we were going to make it out of. We knew it first and foremost had to be light weight for my 6 year old son to wear however it also had to be durable so it wouldn't break or dent when he wore it to all of the parties, parades and trick or treating. We originally used 1/2" pink insulation foam board but once we put it all together we found that this material was too brittle. We tried to add cardboard on the sides of each piece but this made it too bulky and heavy. We finally decided that double wall thick cardboard would work best. We cut all the pieces out of two separate pieces of thick cardboard and then glued those two pieces together to make it extra strong and thick. My husband also bent a thin rod of metal to the shape of the body core and legs and put it inside the two pieces of cardboard for extra strength and support. This was an important step as it kept the cardboard from bending and breaking.

Once all the parts were cut out my husband spent numerous hours and glue sticks fitting the pieces snugly in place. We then used 2 cans of white primer and two cans of white spray paint to paint the whole dinosaur. I purchased two light up eyeball rings from a local party store and glued them into the eye socket. This really made the T-Rex come to life and looked amazing at night!

Next came the harness that would allow my son to wear the dino as a costume. We used 1/2" pvc pipe. Drilled two holes through the pelvis bone and put a piece of pipe trough it. The pipe came down my son's back to give support and then around his hips. The front was secured with a "T" support the horizontal part of the "T" joined the pvc together in front of my son's waist the vertical part of the "T" went up diagonally and supported the neck bone of the dinosaur. The end of the "T" had a slit cut in it so the cardboard fit into it and was held up by tension. We then cut the straps off of an old backpack and sewed them to the pvc pipe going down my son's back and added another strap fastened across his chest to keep it tight. This allowed him to slip the whole thing on just like a backpack! We finished the harness off by painting it green so it would blend in with my son's jungle outfit.

I wanted my son to be unnoticeable and all the attention on the dinosaur so I decided to make him look like a jungle. He wore a camo sweat suit and I painted his face with green face paint. I purchased some fake fern swags, and four fern bunches from the local craft store when they were 50% off! We wrapped the fern swags around his neck, around his chest and back under his arms fastening them in the back to hide the harness. We put a couple of elastics around each of his ankles and tucked the fern bunches into them.

One of the coolest parts of this costume was the sound effects. My husband used zip ties to strap his bluetooth speaker to the back of the harness. He downloaded the Jurassic World theme song, "Everybody Walk the Dinosaur" song and tracks of Dinosaur roars.

This "prehistoric" costume will definitely go down in our history books. My son had an absolute blast wearing this costume from sneaking up behind people and hitting the roar soundtrack, peering into restaurant windows during our parade scaring the people at the tables, to dancing the the dinosaur for the crowds of people who gathered in awe! My son couldn't walk 10 steps without being stopped for pictures. Everywhere we went people were blown away with the resounding phrase "Best costume Ever" Even as we walked down the street for trick or treating people were literally slowing down their cars yelling out the window "Coolest costume ever!"

In total the costume was pretty cheap. We spent $15 for the puzzle file. My husband ran the CNC water jet so that was free. We got the cardboard for free from a local packaging warehouse. The spray paint was a couple of bucks a can. PVC pipe was less than $10. The ferns and swags cost around $15. All in all the total cost was less than $50! It was a pretty big bang for our buck!