The Demon and his Groupie Costume

October brings a special time for me and my family. Since I was a young child, Halloween allowed me the chance to let my creative side run wild, I could do Whatever I dreamed up! This year I wanted to pay tribute to the only Rock Band you think of when you think of Halloween, KISS! Being 6’6” Gene Simmons was the perfect choice!
I began scouring goodwill stores and garage sales for parts around 2 months ago. I doin a pair of children’s shoulder pads, several place mats, black tights and pleather material for the cape.
To begin I dissected the shoulderpads, removes the padding aomit was just the plastic shell, I sprayed it with a hammered metal spray paint, sculpted some spikes with sculpty I purchased from the craft store. They were also sprayed silver. I began working on my cape, which meant grandmas sewing machine super glue and hundreds of round silver circles purchased from the craft store I drew the shape of the cape with white crayon on it, then carefully cut the outline. Once cut out, I stitched a quick edge so it wouldn’t unravel. I then glued the silver circles on it to make it look like jewels, attached some metallic studs at the top, and some rivet rings so I could attach to the shoulder pads, added a couple key rings to attach to holes on the shoulder pads and the cape and armor was well under way.
I then cut apart the padding I removed from the shoulder pads and created the chest armor with some extra material and a hot glue gun, it of course was sprayed silver like the armor!
Under the armpit I opted to wear black under armor tights and shirt. I fashioned the codpiece out of some more of the extra cape material, part of a frisbee and hundreds of the same silver circles I used on the cape.
Now comes the hardest part, the boots and shin guards. I took a pair of athletic shoes, 10 cans of expanding foam insulation used for sealing cracks in walls. I place the shoe inside of an empty shoebox, filled the shoe with an old sock and some towels so it wouldn’t collapse, I then filled the shoe box with the foam expanding insulation, and let it dry for several days.
Once dry I tore the box off of the foam, and started carving the dragon boots with a dremel, after 2-3 days of carving and painting with spray paint and a foam paint brush the dragon boots were complete. I then only needed to add the shin guards. I cut the table placemats into a scalloped pattern over and over, then I used more of the cape material and glued the scallops into layers so it appeared to be scales. Sprayed it all silver and the costume was complete! I only had to watch the Gene Simmons tutorial on how to do his makeup, purchased a wig and shaped it to look like his iconic hair, add some red food coloring to my mouth and the Gene Simmons Demon was complete! We just went to a company costume party and it was the hit of the party! Hope you enjoy! Total spent, around $175