Minecraft Steve with Diamond Armor - Brick Building Kids Bobby Halloween Costume

Bobby decided to give me the ultimate challenge this year. He wanted to be Steve from Minecraft complete with iron armor. I read a few pinterest pages where these costumes were made by printing sheets and adhering them to cardboard. However, our printer isn't the greatest and it certainly cannot print 11x12 pages. So, I went with my only other option...Steve was hand painted. 

The best part about the Steve costume is that it was by far my cheapest costume. The only items I needed to purchase for this costume were some various colors of paint (priced at about .77 each) and a roll of kraft paper which I picked up at the dollar store. The worst part about the Steve costume was the time it took to make it. It was incredibly time consuming but the end result was well worth it. Steve's head seemed to be the best thing to start with. I started with a square box to use as his iron helmet. I actually took a small Steve figure we had to determine exactly how the helmet needed to be cut on all sides. 

Once the helmet was cut, I covered the outside of it with kraft paper (I used masking tape on the outside of my pieces and a tan colored duct tape on the inside). I then cut all 4 sides out of another box to put up inside each side of Steve's face. These pieces were obviously longer since Steve's face is almost twice as long as the actual helmet. I left the flaps on these pieces though so that I could create a border on the bottom of Steve's head. The border would allow Steve's head to sit better on his shoulders. For the face piece, I set the cardboard up inside the helmet to determine where the eyes would need to be in comparison to the nose guard. 

Once, I located the place for the eyes, I used a pencil and ruler to mark the area that needed to be cut out. For this, I simply used an exacto knife and cutting mat Once my pieces were cut, I covered them in kraft paper. After, the helmet and the face sides were covered, I went to work drawing my squares with a pencil. I made each square 1"x1". As soon as the squares were drawn, I began adhering all the pieces together. For this step, I used hot glue where I could. However, this step was a little challenging since the glue dries so fast. I tried to get as much glue as I could as quickly as I could. Afterwards, I used duct tape on the inside to make sure the face was nicely secured to the helmet. Once, the head was assembled, I went to work painting the helmet and then the face. I chose 4 different colors for the armor. I used 2 different shades of turquoise, a light sea green color, and white. 

When I looked at the way Steve's armor appears, I noticed that the edges tend to be more darker than the center. So, I tried using my turquoise colors on all of the edges. I did not use a pattern with my colors. For the face, I used a dark brown, light brown, tan, and white. After several hours painting, Steve's head was complete. 

For Steve's body, I basically used the same procedure. I found a box that was perfect for his body. I cut a hole out of one side of the box for Bobby's head and a hole out of the front and back of the box for each arm. I used packing tape to tape up the flaps of the box since the top of the box was actually going to be Steve's back. Once all of the holes were cut, I covered the body with kraft paper and drew all of my 1" squares. I used another taller more narrow box for the arms. I cut the box in half and used each half for each arm. I again taped up the seams of the box with packing tape and cut 1 side of each box out for Steve's arms. These sides would go up against Steve's body. I then covered the arm pieces with kraft paper and 1" squares. 

Once everything was cut and covered, I began painting. When I painted Steve's body, I did paint larger areas with the same color. For instance, I might have painted 4 or 5 in the same line turquoise. I did run my areas in different directions though so that I could keep a pix elated appearance and not a striped appearance. After everything was painted, I used duct tape to secure the top of the arm to the top of Steve's shoulder on the inside (however I also ended up using clips to keep them together better). I only attached the top portions so that way the arms could flap up when Bobby needed to put the costume on or take it off. I impressed myself with this costume. 

Making Steve was frustrating and fun at the same time. Despite the amount of time these costumes took and the actual lack of time that I had, everything came out incredibly well.