FFPlaza.com Multimedia: Create Your Own Costume: Geuther Originals

Multimedia: Create Your Own Costume: Geuther Originals

Some time back, Matt Geuther sent in photos of his Halloween costume, based on a Dr. Doom mask he won on eBay for a mere $15. The mask itself was a bit of a surprise -- having never heard of it -- but Matt's accompanying costume was fairly impressive as well... Matt Geuther Original Dr. Doom Costume

Despite an impressive appearance, Matt's Doom armor is entirely made of plastic. Matt describes how he constructed this version.

Well, I looked and looked for costume armor but found that was even out of my price range. So, as necessity is the mother of invention, I used two and three liter plastic bottles.
I cut the bottoms and tops off, painted the inside with silver paint, and used adhesive velcro to get the pieces to wrap around and stay in place. Unfortunately single bottles weren't enough to wrap around upper arms or legs, so I had to patch extra plastic in to make it reach. I kept the seems under the arms and behind the legs.
I used my son's rubber ball to make the shoulders. I cut it in half and stuffed the halves with foam to keep them hemispherical.

Matt's an ambitious guy and asked about any any Thing masks he might use for his next Halloween costume. I told him of the Ben Cooper children's mask from the 1970s and Tom Banton's idea of modifying an existing skull mask. But Matt was interested in something more... authentic.

Not that much later, I got another note from Matt with the following attachment...

Thing costume by Matt Geuther. Mister Fantastic & Invisible Woman costumes by Christian from Superhero Station.

Matt explained that, not being able to find a decent Thing mask, he went ahead and made one from scratch. Simply put, he sculpted a Thing head, made a mold of that, and used the mold to create a latex mask. (Obviously, that's an over-simplification.) Of course, he shelled out a fair amount of cash in creating his mask and that left little for the remainder of the costume. Matt turned around and sold his one-of-a-kind mask to earn some extra money to help develop the costume. Since he has the mask's mold already complete, however, creating additional masks is relatively simple.

Matt's costume has come a long way. Here, you see it is essentially complete. He's mentioned that he's spent many a night up very late working on the costume or other masks. He's clearly got a great love for working on this stuff, and I can't wait to see what other ideas he's got up his sleeve.