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Building my Predator Costume

Orme Court has held many great parties, with many great themes and many great costumes. When I heard they had chosen a Jungle theme for their August 2002 bash, I decided to shoot for the ultimate prize and go as a Predator. It all went rather well, mainly because I didn't have a job at the time and therefore could devote colossal amounts of time to the whole thing. Since quite a few people have asked or emailed me about the costume, I decided to put this page together to inform and enlighten, and perhaps even give a few people out there a start on their own cool Predator costumes that might get them arrested on public transport.

I'll start with the mask, which was the central part of the outfit. I bought it from Gerard at Mysteria Models, who was excellent. I sent him money over the net, and the mask arrived a day later. It was meant for hanging on a wall, so I immediately set about making it wearable. I used a a rugby head guard as a base and glued it to the inside of the Predator mask. I used lots of Araldite quick dry epoxy, with some gaff tape to hold the head guard in place overnight. Getting the angle right for wearing was pretty difficult - I suggest using tape until you get it right, then go splat with the glue.

The dreadlocks were actually a single long piece of black electrical cable, cut into lengths. I put little strips of silver tape around them so they'd look a little more segmented. I had a devil of a time trying to get them to stick onto the mask. I originally tried to glue them onto the head guard, but they kept falling off before the glue could take hold. My wise and wonderful girlfriend then came up with the idea of sandwiching the cables between two pieces of gaff tape, and sewing the whole thing onto the head guard. I used lots of thick sewing cotton just to be sure, and it seemed to work well.

Because I could only find a light grey head guard, I used some black spraypaint to darken the back of it. Obviously a black guard would've been much better, but I couldn't find one in the sports shops.

The vest I hired from Angels Fancy Dress in central London. It came all done up with silver spraypaint and the sci-fi stuff all over it. I used silver gaff tape to make the shoulders look more like armour plates, and grabbed a joining pipe from a plumbing store for the shoulder cannon. I did a light coat of black spraypaint on everything to make it a little less shiny and clean. I also hung a plastic skull off the back of it as an authentic Predator trophy.

Under the vest, I wore a black sleeveless shirt belonging to my girlfriend that was ridiculouly small but worked really well. It darkened my skin, which until that point was looking pretty pasty pale and un-Predator-like. It made me smell nice too.

For my arms and legs, I bought two sets of the biggest soccer shinpads I could, and covered their front panels with good old silver gaff tape. A dusting of black spray paint finished them off. I wore one set normally on my shins, and the other set on my forearms. I briefly considered building the big Predator wrist blade thing, but I was running low on time. Plus, waving a large bladed object around at large crowded party was probably going to put someone in hospital, so I left it out.

As well as the actual costume, I used makeup on my arms, legs, hands and neck to make me look more alien. My girlfriend helped a great deal here, smearing the gunk all over me and laughing a lot. I used a base of green, then dabbed black and grey fingermarks to make it look scaly. I'd also been growing my fingernails long, so I cut them into points and painted them with black nail polish. The costume was finished with black rugby shorts, black socks and black sneakers, with the strategic application of gaff tape to cover any obvious logos.

My entrance was pretty amusing - guys ran up saying "Holy crap! A Predator! That's awesome!" while the girls ran up saying "Holy crap! We have no idea what you are, but it sure looks scary!"

Then I discovered that the full outfit was actually pretty hot and uncomfortable. The mask was heavy and clumsy, and I couldn't see very well while wearing it. My makeup was coming off on everything I touched as well. I wasn't going to take it all off though - it was too much fun. Besides, then I would've been practically naked (except for the green body paint).

Obviously the big problem with this costume is that if you can't get a good mask, it doesn't work nearly as well. I suggest looking at prop or costume stores on the net, or finding a creative friend with a lot of spare time and a weakness for cheap liquor.