Bowser Costume 2.0

This is a little out of order. Normally you would start with Bowser 1.0 or Beta Bowser but this one is just too cool to not start with.

For those of you not familiar with the Super Mario franchise, it was the best selling video game for 20 years. It pits Mario and Luigi against the evil Bowser (or King Koopa) in a never-ending battle to free Princess Peach, Princess Toadstool or what ever else is cool that day. Come Halloween you will see a plethora of Marios and Luigis roaming the streets.
But you never see Bowser.

After making a first version of Bowser in 2009 while working at Camp Shane, a weight loss camp in Ferndale NY, it seemed like a good idea to try the whole thing again for Halloween with more than just a couple of days to finish it. There are a few versions of Bowser from within the franchise. A live action movie, a tv show and improved graphics over the years left me with plenty of choices for a template. In the end, a fairly simple 3D rendered one became my favorite. The picture shows enough detail to work with.

After some rough... very rough sketches I made the shell and head piece out of chicken wire. One of the tricks during prolonged work with chicken wire is wrapping your fingertips with masking tape. You'll end up with far fewer cuts from all the sharp edges without having to give up precision from switching to needle nose pliers. Invest in a good set of wire cutters. I had to make hundreds of cuts and would have gone insane using one of those blunt flimsy jobs you find in the bargain bin.

Holding the shell in shape was quite the challenge. Bowser 1.0 had 2x4's forming a cross and holding the whole things in place. Needless to say, that made the costume ridiculously heavy and imposible to wear. Bowser is always hunched over. Not the most comfortable position with a plank on your back. Solution: two arcs of wrapped chicken wire with the shell's edge formed by a chicken wire loop. The whole thing pretty much held its form and just needed the gaps filled in.

To cover the whole thing, I went with paper mache. Everyone has their own favorite recipe, but I tend to go cheap. Flour and Water, just add news paper strips. The head was at least 4 layers thick all around with the inside finished as well. Having a fan in the room where you work cuts drying time and prevents mold. From personal experience I can tell you, covering the inside of your costume may seem like a lot of work that no one will ever see, but it beats the hell out of coming home from a party all bloody because you spent the night with an inside-out porcupine.

Not the look I was
going for

I let the whole thing dry and went about looking for weak spots with a flash light and patching them up with masking tape. For some reason duct tape and the flour based paper mache don't get along. If you are going to use that silver fix-all, wait until after applying the base paint. Speaking of paint, go with the most elastic paint you can find. For the head it's not as important, but the shell will see a lot of abuse and the more elastic your paint, the fewer cracks you'll end up dealing with. The first coat can be a little tricky because the solvent in the paint breaks with the glue in the paper mache. After that first coat, don't hold back. The paint in some cases holds the costume together better than the paper mache. I moved away slightly from the original colors from the template to look less cartoonish. I also didn't want to look like Barney.

texturing the spikes

The teeth were taped-on paper cones while all other spikes and protuberances were part of the original wire skeleton. After getting the basic colors down, the shell was too plain, so I added some texture and something that looked a little like the squares on a tortoise shell. At this point I still didn't know how I was going to wear the shell and the rest of the costume was also a complete mystery. A pillow for the breast plate had worked quite well on Bowser 1.0. As long as I didn't wear too much underneath that I might not even die of heat exhaustion. Having a pillow would also provide some much needed bulk for the costume.

measure, cut, fold, tape, cover, glue, repeat

Next up, the bracelets and neck piece. Step one, long strips of card board, black paint. Step two, studs. 30 metal or metal looking studs. I went with a card board octagon, cut in half, and folded into little pyramids. Those were covered with tin-foil and hot-glued to the black paper strips. Two strips for each arm and one for the neck (which always got in the way and limited movement more than it was already)

Left Arm, Shell and Head of Bowser Costume

I had decided to wear something khaki instead of the canary yellow of my template Bowser. Luckily I had two large, beige towels matching my outfit. I rolled them into the right shape and sewed the edges into place. To stop the towels from slipping down my arms, I connected the two behind my back with some bicycle inner-tube and a couple of sewn in D-Rings. Hot-glue kept the bracelets in place. The shell had D-Rings above and below where my shoulders would be; shoulder straps were attached with carabiners. Done? ... yeah, try fitting in a cab or out the door with this thing on.

Behold in all its glory... BOWSER

Went to First Avenue in Minneapolis for their "Too Much Blood" party 

And as it turned out, we weren't the only ones there paying homage to the Mario Bros Franchise. City Pages were taking pix of all the costumes that night, and guess who won first place in the costume competition

BOWSER!!!!

All in all a hugely entertaining project that took just a little too long. Not to mention that the shell was in terrible shape after wearing it to a packed night club for three hours. Now I have to choose between fixing Bowser and trying to sell him, or starting a new project.

And for good measure...