Garment Construction

All of Skull Kid’s garments have a very rough and simple look to them, and are heavily weathered and worn. Burlap was chosen as the primary cloth to achieve that rustic look. Since the weave of burlap is so wide, two layers were used to keep the cloth from being see-through. The pattern for the shirt and shorts were taken from a deconstruction of my own old garments. After sewing the garments together, large faux-stitches were sewn over the sleeve seams.

The collar was cut freeform, and split in the back. Velcro was added to this split to keep the collar secured.

The gloves were created using the simple hand-turkey method - the shape of my hand was traced onto paper, and this was transferred to cloth with seam allowance then sewn together along the traced line. Large faux-stitches were added along the seam edge, as with the shirt. The strips at the base of the glove were reinforce with wire to keep their straight edge (as with the hat). The white Kokiri symbol was painted on before any weathering.

The legs of the pants were shredded and then distressed, as were the hem of the shirt, sleeve edge, collar edges, and glove fingers to get the cloth to fray.

For the shoes, I started with some old shoes and created a frame for the upturned toe using a curved pyramid shaped from Sintra plastic. This was glued over the toe of the shoe. A cloth cover was then sewn together and encased the whole shoe, folding over at the ankle to create a cuff. Large faux-stitches were added along the seams here as well.

All of the clothes were then stained with coffee - random chunks of cloth were splashed with coffee, then allowed to dry to see the effects. This was repeated until the “grime” looked natural.

Lastly, the belt was fashioned using the same wood rings and raffia wrapping as on the hat. A small clasp is wrapped into the raffia on the two ends, allowing the belt to join behind the back. The same wood rings and raffia were added to the shoes.

Undersuit

Beneath the outer garments, I am wearing a morphsuit that is textured to look like Skull Kid’s woody skin. To get this texture onto the spandex, liquid latex was painted on in small irregular patches. Two coats were needed to raise the texture and look accurate.

Electronics

To enhance the immersion of this costume, some hidden electronics are included. Skull kid has a very iconic crazy laugh. To reproduce this, I added a small speaker system consisting of an audio board, speakers, and a AAA battery pack. This whole setup was spread out as flat as possible and glued into the inside of the morphsuit chest, the lumps well-hidden underneath the bulky burlap shirt and collar. The trigger buttons were wired along my arm up to my hands, where they rested at my fingertips. By simply pressing my thumb and one of my fingers together, I can generate a number of variations on Skull Kid’s laugh.