Cheap/fast/easy/last Minute Loki(s) Variant Costume

So you had plans to create an awesome Halloween costume to blow all of your friends away, but you’re a millennial piece of crap (don’t worry, you’re in good company), have ADHD, are a parent and the kids are just always friggen there, or are so overworked and exhausted that you spent your downtime binge watching Squid Games or Halloween kids movies from the 90s? Take a deep breath, remember that you are loved and this isn’t the end of the world, and come along and build a quick and easy Loki crown. Pair it with your normal hoodie and jeans or pajamas and call yourself a variant.

If you’ve read any of my instructables before you know I like doing things the cheap and easy way. This costume piece is no different.

You’ll need but I’ll note where you can
5mm craft foam
2mm craft foam
Contact cement
Scissors/Xacto Knife
Heat Gun (optional)
Plasti-dip (optional)
Super glue (optional)
Mod Podge (optional)
Felt (optional)
Paint (optional - you could just use yellow or gold craft foam and skip this step)

The template is pretty simple on this. We not going to do all the super fine details because we don’t have time. Your party starts soon! Print it on a standard size piece of paper and it should fit a normal size adult head. Obviously it can be scaled up or down as needed.

The second part of this is just using your scissors to cut out the template.

(I put additional templates for Sylvie and Kid Loki in the final steps but I’m also putting them here for ease of access)

Good job! You’re making excellent progress!

As noted, I make my horns from 2mm craft foam. Other guys may use 4mm or 6mm craft foam but my angle cuts always suck. Using the thinner foam allows me to get seams that are fairly smooth without the need for coming back and hitting things with a dremel later.

Optionally, I do use a heat gun to pre-curve the horns a little bit. This just makes things a little easier. If you don’t have a heat gun, skip it. Next, I apply contact cement to the edges on both halves. I then go make a sandwich or drink a glass of my favorite adult beverage as the contact cement must be allowed to dry to a tacky consistency before you try to put it together. If you don’t wait, it won’t work. Patience is a virtue, young grasshopper.

Use the template to transfer the shapes on to the foam by tracing what you cut out in the last step. The main part and the little adornment is on 5mm craft foam. I do the horns on 2mm craft foam because I have a real problem getting my angle cuts right to make sure everything fits together smoothly. I’ll show you what I mean with some of my failures later.

Liberally apply the contact cement to the base of the horns, the back of both adornment pieces, and strategically on the main piece (see picture). Once the contact cement is dry, put it all together.

Note: I’ve been using contact cement because I’ve found it’s the best adhesive for this job. However, because I know you’re in a hurry you can substitute super glue or hot glue for any or all of these steps if you don’t have contact cement at home. The results may not look as good but, honestly, who cares? In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter. Just know I’m proud of you for getting out of bed and trying.

You’ve got some options when it comes to the pre-paint prep work.
1. You can run your heat gun over all of the foam to cause the pores to seal. This works but I usually combine it with one of the other techniques below.
2. You can paint mod podge over all of the foam to seal the pores and create a better base for the paint to stick to.
3. You can spray all of the foam with plastidip.

I chose option 3 for this build as its quick and easy and I’m lazy 🤷🏽‍♂️

This is where I issue a standard warning about painting in a well ventilated area, but we both know if you waited til the last minute you’re probably just going to do it in your kitchen. So open a window or put on a respirator mask or something. Your lung and brain health is important.

Paint is easy. Just hit it with spray paint or use paint brushes and put some acrylic paint on it. Just like you, you beautiful mess, it doesn’t need to be perfect. Good enough is good enough.

With the paint dry (or at least dry-ish, I may have ended up with a gold mask outline on my face), it’s time to make this thing wearable. I measured a piece of elastic to fit my head and then attached it to the crown with hot glue. I then hot glued a couple of pieces of scrap foam over the ends it to ensure it stays in it place.

I then hot glued a piece of felt to the inside of the crown. This is completely optional and purely for comfort.

YOU DID IT! Congrats!

At this point you should have a finished Loki crown. The longest part of this project is waiting for the paint to dry but still, you should be able to complete this in a few hours. You can literally pair this with any outfit and call yourself a Variant and people will have to accept it because it’s canon thanks to our majestic Disney Overlords.

Go forth and enjoy your Halloween.

I couldn’t find any templates on line for the Kid Loki variant (I didn’t look very hard). So I made one and attached it. It’s fairly straight forward. I used similar techniques to make it so I didn’t feel the need for a whole new instructable. The only big difference is in the details. On this helmet I cut shallow lines in the foam for details then hit it with the heat gun. I think it turned out well.

When I start crafting it’s usually from a place of stress and/or anxiety. Creating a craft or costume or writing or painting really helps me to calm TF down. The last couple of days were so stressful I went ahead and made like 8 of these in various styles and a chitauri-inspired scepter. In doing so I came up drew up plans for Sylvia’s crown. This one was also super easy.

I actually used 2mm craft foam for the base as I thought it looked a bit more delicate on screen. I like how it turned out but the thicker stuff would be better for durability. To make the broken horn I made a not-broken horn and then cut part of it off with scissors after it was attached. I then stuffed the open part with foam scraps that I rolled together (though just randomly stuffing it in will give a more broken look) and hot glued the crap out of it.

The best part about variants and the multiverse of madness is that you can’t screw it up. Anything goes. So have fun, do your best, and know I’m rooting for you. 🙂