HOW TO MAKE A WALL-E COSTUME

Halloween is in a week. (Six days to be exact.) You’ve gently tried to persuade your son or daughter that maybe another costume would be better, but they are insistent that they want to be their favorite movie character, WALL-E.

What do you do?

Clearly, this is what happened to me. I suppose that I could have done some last minute Amazon shopping, or made a funky, casual, WALL-E t-shirt costume, but I went all in. My son wanted to be WALL-E? I was going to give it my best shot.

It took about three days, including drying times, was made with mostly found objects and material, my son was able to be involved at every step, and it was a crowd pleaser in the end.

Here's how I did it.

FIRST STEP: DO A LITTLE RESEARCH

What does WALL-E look like, really? I would actually suggest that you watch the movie at this point! This was something we did after the fact, and realized that we missed a detail here or there that would have made the costume better. But feeling pressed for time, I went straight to the internet to pull up some images.

My memory of the character was definitely different than the actual design, so this research was helpful.

Most important, I felt, was to get close to the broad shapes of the character: the cube-like body, triangular treads, and the off-the-shelf-binoculars head piece. Secondly, I tried to get as close as possible to the proportions of these pieces relative to one another. So, the treads needed to be quite large, even longer than the body. And the head needed to be sizable, as well. (However, the head that I actually built should have been smaller in hindsight.)

NEXT STEP: FIND SOME BOXES

For several weeks we’d been hanging on to a large Amazon box, and even saved it from recycling at one point. With a little cutting down it proved to be a great body.

We also had several larger than usual boxes that made a great base for the treads, and one for the head. Again, we were short on time, so I didn’t double check sizes or do much careful measuring. Instead, I started cutting and things progressed very quickly.

At one point, we were not sure how we were going to attach the head piece to my son's head. We considered having his eyes inside the box, peering out, but realized that solution did not leave much room between the body and head piece. A bicycle helmet was sitting nearby as we were discussing, and the obvious idea was born.

We used an older helmet of my son’s which allowed me to use many strips of tape to secure the head piece box to the shell of the helmet, without worrying too much about marring his fancy, daily Giro head protection.

Of all the pieces, the treads required the most paper craft. By working in the proper orientation of the corrugated ridges, I scored one side of the cardboard strip to create a break that allowed for bending and looked convincing, visually, as a metal and rubber tread.

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Just a quick note on tools. I pulled everything I had from storage and was prepared for whatever problem came my way, but in the end 95% of the cutting and work was done with my pocket knife and some Elmer’s glue.

A BIG STEP: PAINTING

Some extra glue, tape, and spray paint were the only supplies we purchased. So, WALL-E can be done on a micro-budget.

For colors, my son and I picked out black, silver, reddish-brown (for a dirt look), and yellow-orange spray paints. This final color is officially a Rust-oleum Gloss “Marigold”, but it should be called “WALL-E Yellow” because it was such a great match for the character.

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As we started painting, we realized that the defects, imperfections, and brown color of the cardboard boxes really helped our beat-up little WALL-E look more convincing. We sprayed on a little extra “dirt” color, but it was hardly needed. Even some of the barcode labels left on the boxes added some character.

I think drying took less than twenty-four hours. It was fast.

FINAL STEPS: ASSEMBLY AND DETAILS

The head piece was assembled (taped to the helmet) before painting. Check! But after painting was complete, the body still needed some work.

My son added all the logos and other details with a regular set of colored markers, then I positioned the tread relative to the body and punched two holes through each wall (body and tread housing). I then threaded a thin rope through the punched holes, cut to length, and tied it off on inside the body leaving about an inch and a half slack, and repeating the same process for the other side.

This worked well.

I was initially going to directly affix the treads to the body, but having them hang in a loose but controlled way from the body added a lot of life and character to the movement of the costume, like a string puppet or marionette. Also, it was quite forgiving when they got banging up going through doors, getting loaded into the car, or getting put-on or taken-off for the fifteenth time.

I wasn’t totally happy with having just the black spray-painted eyes, so I sacrificed the tops of two tennis ball containers and glued the plastic edges to the cardboard, leaving the metal ring facing out. The size was just about right for our character.

Finally, I ordered a cheap thermal black mask online and my son stretched it over his whole face, making a very complete body suit, and realistic-looking neck.

HALLOWEEN

All of this was in the midst of the COVID pandemic, so most Trick-or-Treating was cancelled.

The afternoon was spent at Grandma’s house for a birthday party where my son got to show off his costume to relatives, and that evening we ventured to downtown Redwood City. WALL-E put on an impromptu little five minute show for onlookers in the Courthouse Square and was then stopped several times for selfies and pictures on the way to dinner by the movie theatre. People were very friendly and positive and genuinely impressed. And-- most importantly-- my son was happy.

Directive complete.

https://vimeo.com/475643452