Metal Pacman Costume

The last of our trio of Pacman costumes from Halloween this year: Metal Pacman from Pacman Adventures.

See our Playable pacman arcade game here: https://www.instructables.com/id/Playable-Pacman-Ar...

and our Pacman costume here: https://www.instructables.com/id/Pacman-Adventures-...

So, if you saw our Pacman costume, you saw how to make a completely 3-D Pacman costume and the original plan was to make this one that way as well, but that one took so long and soooooo much stuffing that we decided to try another method for the this one.

This one is just half stuffed so it is much easier to transport.

But, it had so much trial and error that it took about as long to finish.

You will need:

gray/silver fleece (about a yard for us)

black, blue, and white felt

spray adhesive

computer and printer

sewing stuff including pins

stuffing

some fabric (any kind, for the stuffing layer)

*Poliwhirl costume to build on* or make from scratch

Step 1: The Idea

I had never heard of metal pacman before Kaiden said he wanted to be him. Apparently, pacman turns into him when he eats a certain power-up berry or something.

So I did a Google search from some reference photos to see what we had to do.

Luckily, we were at a thrift store and found this poliwhirl costume for just $2 and it spurred the idea to just cover it with gray/silver fabric and viola!

The Poliwhirl is pretty much just 2 circles of fabric sewed together, open at the bottom, with a slit in the back at the top with strings to tie and a little arc cut for the neck area and slits for the arms on the front circle

Step 2: Trace

I traced the poliwhirl costume on my gray fleece and cut out.

*note* I traced the eyes too, but they weren't needed and had to be cut off later, so you could lose them now and save some fabric.

After lining up the fabric on top of the costume, I felt through it to feel the slits for the arms and marked them with a felt marker. Cut the slit.

I tucked the eyes of poliwhirl into the costume to leave just the normal circle shape, lined up the fleece with the costume, pin in place, and sew all around the circle. Be sure to just sew to the top layer of the costume when you get to the opening at the bottom, not through both or you will have no leg room.

Pin the slits in the fleece to the slits in the costume and sew all around the slits.

Flip the costume inside out and cut off the eyes right before the seam you just sewed.

Step 3: The Face

I used photoshop to enlarge the facial features to fit our costume size. Here you will find both eyes, nose, and a 2 part eyebrow and 2 part mouth pattern. The 2 part ones have plenty of overlap for easier aligning.

Print them and cut them out. Tape the 2 piece ones together.

Nose and eyebrows

Trace the nose twice on the same gray fleece from the body and the eyebrow 4 times. Make sure you trace once from right side up pattern and once from upside down pattern so they fit together with the clean sides together later. Cut them out.

Align and pin the nose and both eyebrows so that the clean sides are touching/ marked sides facing out. Sew the nose all around, leaving the flat end open. Sew the eyebrows all around leaving a section open (just choose a small straight section)

Flip them all inside out and stuff. Pin the remaining section of the eyebrows and sew. Leave the nose open.

Face

Flip upside down and trace the mouth on black felt and cut it out.

Flip upside down and trace each eye on white felt. Mark an L on the left one and an R on the right to remember which is which later.

Cut the eye lids off the eyes. Flip upside down and trace the lids on the gray fleece. Mark the left and right.

Cut the white area off the eyes. Flip the remaining eye patterns upside down and trace on blue felt. Mark the left and right.

Cut the blue area off the eyes. Flip the remaining eye patterns upside down and trace on the black felt. Mark the left and right.

Arrange all the felt and fleece pieces to reconstruct the eyes.

Go to well ventilated area or outside to use spray adhesive to put them all together piece by piece. First glue the blue on the white, then the black on the blue and last add the lids.

Putting on the face

Arrange the eyes, mouth, and eyebrows on the costume to see where they need to go. Use the spray adhesive to put them all on. Even the eyebrows. I initially just stuck them on with spray adhesive to hold while I sew them, but it held just fine for the most part. One eyebrow did fall off after a few uses, but I didn't use much adhesive since I was planning on sewing. You decide if you want to sew or not.

Putting on the nose

Here is the hardest part. I marked where the nose should go and cut a hole there. Then I inserted the open end of the nose in the hole, pinned, and sewed. It was a pain to do. To make the nose stay up, you have to sew from the nose to higher up on the costume "forehead" repeatedly until it stays up.

This did cause the fabric to pull in and caused ripples I didn't like. Hopefully, you have a better idea for this part.

Step 4: Gloves

The Poliwhirl costume came with gloves that I just traced on red and blue fabric for the gloves. Sew and flip inside out.

Step 5: Why Wont You Stay Round!

So we tried the fit and the arms being where they were cause the costume to fold and not stay round so we tried to fix that by using a wire hanger.

Shaped the hanger to follow the bend of the costume at the bottom and sew it to the top layer on the inside.

Step 6: Uh Oh, Gotta Fix That!

So that was supposed to the end of that, but this is what it looked like.

Ummmm..... that doesn't look right! I couldn't let my poor kid go out in that! The placement was so spot on, it was just wrong. And he was twisting innocently, making the nose flop around and all the adults just looked at each other and busted up!

Something had to be done to try to fix that!

Step 7: Stuffing Again

So to fix it, I decided to stuff it some. I had some random off white fabric and just traced the costume on it. Cut it out and trimmed it down a little.

Flip the costume inside out which is a little hard with the wire and align the fabric with the costume. Pin in place. Cut it down around the arm holes, we cant sew it over those. Sew all around the outside of the costume.

Flip it back inside in and stuff from the top where we left it open. Then sew the rest of it.

This is how it ended up. It still has a slight wrong look, but not nearly as bad. When were out, no one said anything or seemed to notice the unfortunate alignment!

Thanks for viewing!