FNAF 4 Nightmare Costume

So this Halloween my son wanted to be Nightmare from FNAF 4. It's a creepy "Animatronic" bear with large claws and a huge mouth with lots of teeth. I figured that the best would be to use foam so I ordered a super cheap sheet of foam 1/2 in thick, a new glue gun, and some glue sticks in Amazon. For all the rest of the materials I used stuff that I had at home. The list included black and metallic paint that I found on the curb (thank you Newyorkers), an old cable wire, a lampshade metal ring, old nerf darts, a bamboo table mat, two red led bulb eyes from an old toy rat, and a super-useful rechargeable set of batteries from a Flip Car Toy. I didn't go for an entire body costume because I wanted this to be a comfortable Halloween for my son, who already had several bad experiences.

Step 1: Shaping the Head

For the upper part of the head I used one of my son's caps as a model and made a basic dome shape. I put it together using the glue gun an added foam ears. I used the cable wire to make a ring and attached that to the dome using a strip of foam to shape Nightmare's upper jaw. Then I created the lower jaw with some more foam, the metal ring from the lampshade, and another cable wire ring. I used the glue gun to put everything together and reinforced some of the joints with pieces of an old canvas (as it it were super strong tape). You have to hold the pieces firmly together so the glue really works.For the snout I cut out an eight, like shape of foam and glued it on top of the jaws. Then, I took a small stripe of foam, rolled it in from both sides, and that made a perfect nose.

My son helped me with a first layer of black paint and then I put the head and jaws together using three chopsticks. I first glued them to the inside of the lower jaw then to the upper jaw. I used lots of hot-glue and reinforced with pieces of canvas. Check the diagram with patterns and measurements.

Step 2: Making and Adding the Teeth, Snout, Nose, Eyes, Hat, and Painting It All Over

For the teeth I used bamboo sticks from an old table mat. They were already red, so I just added some metallic paint in the middle. Since Nightmare has two rows of teeth I first glued a whole line of sticks between the two jaws. That added great support! Then I cut in half the rest of the sticks, used the scissors to make them kind of pointy, and glued them in front of the first line of teeth. I used black acrylic paint all over it, and added some blood with the leftovers of an old tub of red gouache. I cut two tiny foam rings from a nerf dart, painted them red, and voila the eyes!

I made Nightmare's characteristic yellow hat with cardboard from a toilet paper tube and an old folder. I used yellow paint and a piece of electric tape for decoration. I made the bow tie from another piece of old canvas attached to a piece of string and painted it with more acrylic paint.

Step 3: Red Light Eyes!

I added two tiny led bulb eyes that I gouged out of a poor rat toy (It didn't work anymore but I felt a little guilty anyway). I connected the bulbs to a the set of rechargeable batteries from an old control remote car. I put the batteries inside the head dome in a little pouch made with a square of foam so I could remove them easily. At this point my son tried the head on. He said that the chopstick on the front was touching his chin, so I put on a square of foam right on top of it. It added comfort and also made the head fit much better! Finally, I added the stripe of foam in the back to cover the gap left between the upper and lower jaws and added an extra layer of black paint.

Step 4: The Claws

For Nightmare's claws I started with two old black gloves. I asked my son to put them on and then I traced the shape of his hand on some foam to get two rough silhouettes. I modify them to make the fingers pointy. I cut this patterns, painted them black with acrylic, and then cut them into several pieces: each finger became two phalanges, and the rest was left to be the dorsum. Then I put all the pieces together as a puzzle on top of the gloves and hot glued the pieces onto them. I added small squares of foam for the knuckles and an extra layer of black paint. I used the metallic paint to add accents: a little dot on each knuckle and some nasty nails (see the pictures to see how I manicured the claws to shape the nails).

Step 5: The Feet Claws

So I've never seen Nightmare's feet, but my son told me they are "regular robotic feet with claws." Right! So I used stripes of foam to sculpt the claw-feet on top of my son's boots. For each foot, I first cut out two elastic bands out of an old sock, and passed them through the front of the boots. Then I basically used two stripes of foam (1 smaller than the other, cut in the shape of trapezoids) and glued them on the sock bands. Then I added a longer thinner stripe of foam to go around the heel. I added some accents and something like a button to pass through the heel piece with what was left from the nerf darts. Then I painted everything with black acrylic (I first put on a plastic bag on the boots) and metallic paint for the nails (also manicured in the same fashion as the ones for the claws). I thought myself that the nerf accents looked more like black olives than screws or bolts, but my son totally approved them :P

Step 6: Step 6: Body

For Halloween my son wore super comfortable black pants and his boots with the "robotic feet claws" add-ons. Putting on the claws and the head was easy. He strolled comfortably for hours and got lots of candy :).

I hope you like this costume, I enjoyed making it.