General Thade Costume

I have been heavy into creating my own costumes for the last 4 years now and do it mostly for my company's costume contest. Its funny to see them progress and get more complex as I try to top the one from the previous year.
And now General Thade! I think this one will be the most fun.

I started in September with a foam latex mask from Morphstore.com. Airbrushed on color layers until I reached a color I liked. Then added some reddish brown hair around the edges of the mask, grey around the chin area & reworked the face color a little more. I couldn't find a good fit for upper and lower teeth so I just opted to go with lowers for now.
I purchased a Balaclava (not the desert) hood and attached fur to it for my wig. (what a pain this was! my first) Painted an old set of ears I had laying around and attached them to it as well.

I can't remember where I purchased the hands but I removed the lame patches of black fur and added my own. I filled the extended fingers with expanding foam to make them stiff instead of all floppy to make it much easier to pick things up.
The feet I purchased from GrabCart.com and modified them to be shorter. I brought the big toe in a little, and filled the toes in with expanding foam so they didn't flop like clown feet. I couldn't get the black fur off without damaging the rubber so I used brown hair spray to get it the same color as the rest of the fur. Sacrificed an old pair of summer shoes for supporting the feet. I wanted to put a pair of sandals on the feet after this but I didn't have time.

I attached fur to an old pair of long johns where the open parts of the armor are. I also noticed a maroon colored satin shirt he wore under the body armor that I purchased at value village.
I received a leather jacket from a friend, cut the collar off & holes in the inner elbows, armpits and back(for ventilation and to have fur poking out from under the body armor). I glued on black #6 wool yarn (a little closer then I should have, the pants should turn out better) trying to match the design of Thade's body armor.
note: the leather jacket was probably not a good choice, having trouble keeping the yarn attached to the coat after lots of activity. Used both elmers and liquid latex to attach the yarn, but neither is to my liking. I will make a new one probably with a jean jacket this time.

The pants I purchased from value village, cut holes in the backs of the knees, cut out the butt and the crotch, basically they look like chaps, and glued on the yarn. Both the coat and pants were painted with 50/50 latex & paint to give it more strength. I used a latex glove and ran my hand with the pattern of the yarn to smooth the fuzzies down and to flatten the top surface of the yarn for the chrome. It took a few tries to get the desired look of metal strands instead of just yarn. I ended up spraying chrome paint on a piece of cardboard and dabbed it on the outside of the yarn to give it the metal strand look.

For the front and back cod pieces I cut them out of the fake leather material with gold paper table decorations glued between 2 pieces and added metal studs. Gluing & sewing it all together and attaching it to the pants. I purchased shin guards (Wal-Mart) and roman style foam thigh guards (Display n Costume) covered them with a fake leather material and painted on the gold highlights.

Since I don't have the room, equipment and money to create a replica of his chest/back armor, I purchased a generic roman one and painted with black textured paint and hand painted the lions with gold to look roughly similar. (no sadistic monkeys this time - future project along with the sandals & battle helmet) The shoulder armor was made out of an old Tupperware bowl. I cut it in half and shaped it to roughly resemble Thade's and used double sided weather stripping tape to get the design on the front. Painted it with textured paint to give it a weathered look. Metal belt links painted gold were used to attach it to the shoulder straps which are from a white belt painted black with silver decorated disks painted gold glued to the chest/back armor.

We had a wonderful day amazing everyone and taking some great outdoor pictures in my costume. It took about 2 months, a little every day and weekends to create. I hope you like it.