Blast off ... Rocket Raccoon Costume
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Halloween – My son finally settled on his costume for Halloween this year. Thankfully he decided against being an airplane (that was going to be tricky to build) and instead opted to be Rocket Raccoon. He's to young to see the movie but he does enjoy reading the comics with me as well as the few cartoon episodes that have the Guardians of the Galaxy as guest stars.
I opted to go with the commercially available costume as it was "reasonably" priced and easier than buying fabric and trying to craft something before Halloween. The costume came with one of those molded plastic masks with the rubber band. Which while it is very cool won't work for his school party where full masks and accessories aren't allowed. So after some looking around I found a "werewolf" hat that matched the fur of the costume fairly closely. This way he can look the part without having his face covered.
Of course part of what makes Rocket so cool is his variety of crazy laser guns and other weapons. Looking through my collection of terrain bits I found some parts that looked like they could make a decent blaster. I had part of an imaging unit from a laser printer, vinegar bottle, Pedialite bottle, some plastic balls, plotter paper roll and pink foam to work with.
I started by carving out a handle that he could hold using pink insulation foam. This took two tries as the first one wouldn't mount to the imaging unit without snapping off. The second one worked great. I used some hot glue to attach and began cutting up the rest of the pieces.
Once it was glued together I had to make sure it would work so I handed off to my son to try out. Immediately I was greeted with "PEEW-PUGH" and "I blasted him" so the gun worked. Once he fell asleep I was able to pry it out of his hands to apply the paint.
I started with a dark grey primer and followed it up with a gunmetal metallic finish. I applied some color to the techy looking bits and have to say it's looking really cool. I'm going to try and clean up the details and then seal it with a heavy duty varnish so it will stand up to the rigors of a soon-to-be-three year old.
Not the question is can I get the rest of the family
