Abducted by UFO Costume

This year we decided to do a couples costume for Halloween and we really wanted to break outside the norm with it so after a lot of thought and searching the web for inspiration we came to the conclusion of “alien” and “abducted by alien”. The alien part of the costume was easy we had that taken care of and in the bag. What this is going to be about is the ufo portion of the costume, I wanted it to look like I was being abducted by the alien.

I used the basics

x-acto knife

cutting mate

glue gun

tape

I also used the following specialty items

matte black spray paint

matte metallic paint

vht nite shade

6’’ acrylic dome

cardboard

Christmas lights

aluminum foil

aluminum tape

pvc

old backpack

fringe curtain

vellum

Have some fun with this design the ship you want but put a plan together to construct it. For me I wanted a basic “classic” looking flying saucer ufo ship with the dome and the lights and really just a simple design, I thought by doing this it would be obviously recognized by anyone and nothing so specific that I would have to explain, plus I felt this was the best option for me based on the material I had on hand and keeping light weight enough to suspend above my head.

After I knew the design I wanted I measured everything out and set the proportions of everything to sit just above my head about 2”-3” and then the ship plus my height to be no more then 8 foot mark overall including me. So I went to work getting my parts together.

I cut my cardboard to the shapes and sizes I needed and panted to top and bottom parts the matte metallic color, and the center band was painted matte black.

the acrylic dome I used the vht nite shade on, all this is is like a tinting paint made for plastic you can find it at the auto parts store and it’s usually used for smoking car lights but I like using it on acrylic to parts to give a semi transparent effect.

last I measured out my pvc and fit it in the badder section of an old backpack and painted it black to help hide the pvc.

I glued my inner frame together covered the area with the aluminum tape and added the foil to the area to create more of a reflective surface for the lights to bounce off of.

Then I poked holes for the top and bottom to string the lights through to fix them in place.

This is where you really start to take see the end result take shape. I glued the outside down to the frame and stuck the lights on the center section.

Lastly I added a piece of vellum on the bottom part so that it would act as a defuser and melt all the colors of the Christmas lights together, and this actually worked out really great and gave it an all most iridescent look.

I put it on to make sure all my measurements checked out and I had good space between my head and the bottom of the ship but also enough room to make it under doorways without having to duck to much.

Once I knew that all checked out I added some reflective transparent curtain fringe to mimic the rays pulling me up in the ship and cut them long enough to have the effect but short enough they wouldn’t get stuck on anything in passing.

Also this curtain fringe is transparent enough that you can have it cover your face and still have perfect visibility to see through it.

It ended up being a big hit and everything worked as it should have and was comfortable enough to wear it for the several hours sitting, standing, and moving around at the party.