Halloween Costume Build 2022: Banana Cop & Human Target

Since I broke the seal with my blog entry yesterday, I figured I might as well pare down the blog backlog (backblog?) and keep the streak going.

There are 63 days until Halloween; here are my costumes from 2022.

Costume #1: Banana Cop

First, I had a to put together a hasty interim costume for Friday night, because I'm no longer pulling all-nighters to finish costumes. I came up with Banana Cop.

  

There's not a lot to it; a banana costume under a sheriff's uniform top. Though I thought the holster with a real banana in it was a nice touch. (I had to buy the banana, and I even brought the holster into Safeway to make sure I got one that fit.)

Costume #2: Human Target

The second one for Saturday was an actual build. First up was two pieces of foam core board (with a precisely cut eye slit), hot glued together and reinforced by two Home Depot yardsticks:

 

Next, some straps. I didn't have any nylon webbing handy, so I made some straps by folding over some duct tape. The buckles and keepers I already had:

 

Covering the eye hole is just some black panty hose. I had some left over from early on in the pandemic, when there was a mask hack for improving the effectiveness of surgical masks (just cut a tube of panty hose and put it over the mask to help seal gaps). The forehead pad is so I could wear my glasses; it's just some thick polyurethane foam glued to the board:

 

Assembly is just more duct tape and hot glue. The setup is super light, so strength isn't an issue, though I had to experiment to find the right height for the straps (around the neck and waist):

The front could be any poster sized paper, though the point of this costume was to use a silhouette shooting target (with a hole cut to match the eye slit). 

The holes aren't actually bullet holes; I started with a clean target, put a piece of scrapwood with holes drilled through it behind it, and poked a Sharpie marker through to get holes the right size. The white foam core backing shows right through. Then, I just used some spray adhesive to glue it down:

Wearing the costume:

From the side; this is clearly meant to be seen from the front only:

 

You can also use it after Halloween if you want to rent yourself out as half a sandwich board advertisement.