the SHREDDER

Costume built Oct. 2007

So I kind of have this thing for villains.
My freshman year I built and crafted one of my wickedest costumes yet:the SHREDDER!

As a costume designer, I like to take directly from the inspired image: a halloween costume (which is the one time of year I really allow myself time to go all-out) needs to be recognizable or people won't get it. Therefore, too much creativity with a subject, I feel, can go tacky or unappreciated. I like to stick strictly to the character.
So Shredder. I hope you're not asking, "who is Shredder?"... because then we might just have to no longer be friends. (Yes, we're friends.)
But even though we are friends, and you of course do know who he is, for the sake of structural purposes, I will give a small profile on the famed Shredder.

Shredder is the arch-enemy set up against the TMNT. Shredder's beef with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles goes way back, "your sensei fought my sensei" style. Shredder's official name, according to turtle-lore, was Oroku Saki, a ninja of the Foot clan. Hamato Yoshi was another ninja in this clan, who became victimized by Saki when Saki (true to form) slew the leader of the foot clan, and then framed Yoshi for it. Yoshi fled to the sewers of New York City (perfect hideout, right?) where his pet rat, Splinter, furtively learned his Foot clan ninja technique by quietly observing his master practice. As the new leader of the foot clan, Shredder follows Yoshi and finishes the job. But Splinter the rat, and four baby turtles get involved in a nuclear spill and go mutant. Thus the Teenage Mutant Turtles are born, and go Ninjitsu, with sensei Splinter- defending good and rightousness, bleh. Now back to the cool character.

Though throughout the TMNT media Shredder is shown with varying levels of formidability, he always retains a degree of it. Shredder is adept in the martial arts; no one rivals him except Splinter himself... bwaha.

So here is the image that I used as a reference to build:


This is how it turned out:




I built this entire costume. What really amazes me is that I sewed it with the least degree of sewing knowledge, (a small degree I have acquired now) and yet it all came together rather nicely...kind of.

I really had to brainstorm about the metal. I decided to carve styrofoam and drape and pin it with metallically-sprayed fabric. To make adequated "spikage" I cut the handle section out of plastic milk gallons and also sprayed those with metallic paint (I coated just about everything with that stuff--most likely including my brain.)I made "metal straps" with metallic-painted duct-tape. For the boots I simply wore black socks over my shoes. Oh yeah, the helmet? Darth Vader + model magic.



Success of the Costume: 9 out of 10.
Level of insanity according to my roommates:
10 out of 10.