Tag Archives: DIY Halloween Costume

How to Make a Minion Costume for Halloween– Part 2 ( 3D Printed Minion Goggles )

How to Make A Minion Costume Halloween-8500

This post is a continuation of my previous post and will primarily cover the design and printing of the Minion Goggles with eyeballs used  for my Minion Halloween Costume.  I spent the bulk of my costume time designing acurate 3D models in CAD software of the Minions eyes and goggles.  I wanted to make this the focal point of my costume and went to great lengths studying photos measuring toys, and watching the movies and shorts to get scale, proportion and details correct on this part of my Minion Costume for Halloween.  My goggles are designed to fit onto a 12″ diameter foam Minion head( ~11.5″x 5″x5″ dimensions.  My 3D printer is much larger then most of the hobby FDM style printers out there,  allowing me to build parts of  this size in one piece.  If you want to build one you can print it in smaller pieces and glue it up. I broke my model into 2 pieces so it would print easily and without wasted filament on support structures.

3D printed Minion Goggles

Above, you can see the software printing out one of the 3 pieces of my Minion goggle design. The current layer is highlighted in red on the screen.  I use Pronterface (seen above) and Slic3r to turn CAD models into plastic parts with my printer.  Both are amazing pieces of open source software built by the 3D printing community.  I printed it in 3 pieces to keep the weight down and use less filament.  The goggles when completed weighed in at ~1 lb. Quite heavy considering they are 6″  out from the center line of your head.  I designed the Minion Goggles to be printed as multiple pieces to simplify painting, allowing for true to character final product.  My Despicable Me Minion Goggle Design have 2 clear plexiglass lenses for that true “goggle” look.  This keeps dirt/food/stuff of the painted eyeball area and makes the eyeballs appear more glossy and lifelike.

3D printed Minion Goggles

3D printed Minion Goggles

 

3D printed Minion Goggles

The blue stuff in the above photos is Silicon RTV adhesive.  At about 4 hours into the almost 9 hour build there was some warping and pulling away of the parts from the Kapton tape covered heated bed build platform. I slathered on some RTV to prevent further warping and prevent the build from being ruined due to the part separating from the build tray.

3D printed Minion Goggles
I did not take a enough photos, this is the front Goggle lens retainer being built. I used support so the “rivets” around the outer perimeter would build cleanly.  I was careful to count, scale, and locate the rivets based on many photos and screen shots from the DVD.

3D printed Minion Goggles

This is the rear piece that will fit up against the foam minion head that I was constructing for my costume.  The head diameter on my costume is 12″ as this was the largest foam circular shape (more on this in Part 3 of Minion Costum Construction) I could find for a reasonable price.

Despicable Me Minion Costume Goggles Halloween - 2    Despicable Me Minion Costume Goggles Halloween Costume - Assembly    Despicable Me Minion Costume Goggles Halloween

I have uploaded the 3D cad models for my Minion Goggle design onto Thingiverse ( http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:232679 ) in both STL and an IGS assembly in case you want to make a Minion Halloween Costume of your own with some modifications.  Just remember that the goggles are designed to fit on a 12″ diameter head.  You can scale them if you are making a smaller costume for a kid.  If you use my files and make a costume, please send me a pic, I would love to see what you came up with and how it came out.

3D printed Minion Goggles      h

The raw printed goggles held up against the foam so you can see how they will fit on the Minion Head/helmet.

3D printed Minion Goggles   3D printed Minion Goggles

The painted goggles came out well.  In the above left you can see the acrylic disc that fits in the groove on the notepad. The outer frame is a snug enough interference fit that it retains them without any glue.   In my original design I was going to use foam for the helmet, however the foam ring was not up to the task of supporting the 1 lb printed goggles.  I cut a piece of 2 yellow pine into a ring for this purpose.   One more thing to note, should you follow in my footsteps on this DIY Minion Halloween Costume,  the weight of the goggles is too much without a counterbalance at the rear.  I attached with screws a steel plate(approximately 4 in x 6 in x 0.125 in) that I hammer formed to the 12″ diameter  counter the weight of the goggles.  This brings the helmet/head up to about 2.5 lbs.

minion goggles final

More on my Minion Costume Construction in the next and final post on Making a Minion Costume for Halloween – Part 3 where I will show you how I made the helmet, and talk about designing/making the fabric portions of my Minion Costume. 

How to Make a Minion Halloween Costume – Part 1

How to make a Minion Costume    As you can see in the above photo, this year for Halloween I was a Minion from the lovable Despicable Me movies.  I fell in love with minions the first time I saw them.  Not only are Minions adorable, but they are every inventor/scientist/evil genius’s dream.  An army of little workers who build your creations while you are busy thinking up more inventions.  While I have a CNC machine and a 3d printer that build me things while I work on other projects but it’s not the same as having my own minion army.  Oh the things I could accomplish with a minion army…  But I digress, this post is about making a Minion Halloween costume.   The first step in making a great Halloween costume is selecting an approach, setting your costume functionality requirements,  and finding reference materials showing your character. This post will cover this first stage of the costume construction. I will cover this costume in 2 or 3 posts to break up the writing.

Kung fu panda      Kungfu panda with the kids

  The last few years I’ve been really into making my own Halloween Costumes.  Making the costume is almost as fun as going out to celebrate the holiday.  I feel like Halloween is the only holiday that is even more fun as an adult  then it was as a kid.  Two years ago I was Kung Fu Panda.  Kung Fu Panda was a last minute costume but came out well.  My requirements for the Kung Fu Panda costume were less stringent then my more recent costumes. Simply that it be clearly identifiable as Po from Kung Fu Panda cartoons and movies.  I primarily based my design off of a few pictures I found, and a small plastic happy meal toy I “borrowed” from my nephew.  Having an action figure or plastic model of your character choice makes costume design and construction go easily.  You can measure and scale a physical model using calipers to get proportions correct.

Man in the Yellow Hat Halloween Costume     Last year I was the man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George.  My costume requirements changed to include allowing me to dance salsa in costume, as I was certain to be at a few Halloween Salsa Parties.  I used illustrations from the Curious George books as well as pictures.  The key element was getting the Hat to be about the right proportions to match my frame.  You can find my complete posts on making this costume at these links:   How to make the Man in the Yellow Hats Hat  and  Dying Fabric for Halloween Costumes.

homemade-minions-costume-2

I give credit for my initial inspiration for this costume to my friend Laura who sent me a link to the above photo one afternoon in July.  She knew I was a fan of the cute yellow minions and that I was still looking for an idea for my costume.  I saw the photo and was instantly sold on the idea that I  would be a Minion for Halloween this year. The above photo shows but one of many way to make a quick easy and low cost minion costume for Halloween.   A pair of dungaree bib jeans, and a yellow hoodie with a bit of pip cleaners for hair and some goggles is all you need for this simple costume.

minion costume 14Enter the research stage.  After lots of searching the internet looking at pictures like the one above, finding some minion toys to model after, and rewatching Despicable Me I had formulated my approach toward my costume.   I decided that the most important part of the minions was their  goggles/eyes and round head.  I decided to focus much of my costume construction efforts building very accurate 3d renderings in CAD software and then printing out Minion Goggles on my 3D Printer.   I also came to the conclusion that  making the correct pants was important.  I was looking into buying a pair of bibbed denim overalls.  I even went to several stores,and tried on different pairs.  After seeing myself in the dressing room mirror wearing the real bibbed overalls I felt that both the color and style did not really fit with the simple fun Minion character I was hoping to capture in my costume. I decided to make minion Pants complete with short stumpy legs because that’s part of what makes a minion a minion.

Cemercial Minion Costume 11     Halloween Minion Costume Option2

I really want this post to be a collection of ideas for someone in the future to see different approaches to making minion costumes. I met several of my fellow minions while out for Halloween Festivities and then friends had taken pics of Minions they saw.  Below are some other peoples approaches at making a Minion Costume. 

Minion Halloween Costume option 1a       Minion Halloween Costume option 1b

I like the above approach, I didn’t see these until after Halloween when a friend shared them on Facebook.

Halloween Minion Costume Option 3    Foam minion costume Despicable ME

The above ideas inspired my approach, using a full body “head”.  I wish I could have found a spherical foam or other lightweight dome that was larger then the 12″ foam half sphere I ended up using for my costume. My shoulders are considerably broader then 12″ so the head I built was not exactly what I wanted but was what I could make given the availability of easily and cheaply obtainable materials.

Despicable ME minion hat idea diy-minon-costumes-Despicable-me-9 Minion hat ideas

I like the different ways people used hats for their minion costumes in the above pictures.  Had time allowed I was going to buy a yellow hat and put black yarn through it for hair so I could have a more dance worthy inner hat to wear as well as the full costume. I did dance 2 or 3 songs in full costume before removing the Minion head due to it being a bit hot with it on.

best minion costume family

These people win for the best family themed costumes I’ve seen in a long time.  Super awesome!

In my next posts I will share specific details on how I measure, size, design and make my minion costume.  Click here to continue learning how I made my Minion Costume for Halloween,  http://www.projectsbyzac.com/1101/reprap-3d-printer/how-to-make-a-minion-costume-for-halloween-part-2-3d-printed-minion-goggles