Freaky Fred From Courage the Cowardly Dog

Courage the Cowardly Dog cartoon was one of my favorites as a kid. It was my exact kind of weird with SO many good characters and villains. Freaky Fred was always my favorite with the sing-song rhyming and unnerving "nauuuuuughty" situations. He'd been on my cosplay wish list for YEARS, but I could never find the right olive suit. I'd look every now and then and kept my eyes peeled but never had any luck...until this year. Once I had the suit it was officially go time.

1. Olive suit (Signature Menswear) — $119
2. Purple tie — $10
3. White button-up shirt — $22.45
4. Men’s dress shoes — ~$30
5. Synthetic wig — $21.99
6. got2b Glued hairspray — ~$8
7. Lorax stick-on eyebrows — $8.43
8. 3D modeling (Darshana, Fiverr) — $80
9. PLA filament — 303 g total (79 g razor + 224 g mouth) — ≈$5
10. Rust-Oleum Automotive Filler Primer — $9
11. Craft acrylic paints — $4 (no sealer used)
12. Thrifted hard suitcase (thredUP) — $16.04
13. Angelus Leather Preparer & Deglazer + Angelus Acrylic Leather Paint — $28.81
14. Elastic band, dots, laminating & odds/ends — ~$10

Build time: about 1 week

Estimated total: ≈ $372.72

I don't have much to say about the clothing. I purchase/thrifted all if the items for that. Fred wears a distinctive olive green suit, white button up shirt, purple tie and black dress shoes.

The suit I bought was the most expensive thing, and I'm sure cheaper similar options are out there, but I was just so excited to find this one in the perfect shade that I went for it.

First big challenge: How would I make the iconic grin and the accesories? My first instinct was foam modeling clay because I thought it would be the most lightweight to stick to my face. I'd never tried the stuff before, but YouTube made it look fairly simple. Oh no, no, no, no. 😂 I attempted to sculpt the razor first and it was a HOT MESS.

Onto plan B: 3D print. Rather than risking another fail, I hired a guy named Darshana on Fiverr to design an STL file of the mouth and razor. Money extremely well spent as it was completely screen accurate and he had it back to me in 4 days. I printed those in PLA, then sanded… sanded some more..sanded again, then primed and painted everything with standard acrylics.

I attached an elastic strap to the mask to keep it attached to my face that stayed mostly hidden under the wig.

The wig was its own saga as well. I've never styled a wig to this level before with those anime-style spikes, but I gave it my best shot. I took a budget synthetic wig to my basement for about two days and lacquered myself and everything within an 5ft radius in hairspray. My lungs never felt more crisp, lol. The end result could have been better I'm sure, but not bad for a first-timer.

Fred arrives at his Aunt Muriel's house with a suitcase in hand claiming he's on "holiday." I thrifted a suitcase in the right shape on thredUP but it needed a color change. I wiped the shine off with Angelus Leather Preparer & Deglazer, then recolored it using their leather paint. It took a couple coats but they were surprisingly easy to work with.

As we find out later in the episode, Fred isn't actually on holiday and instead has escaped from the Home For Freaky Barbers. No detail is too small to me, so I designed, printed, and laminated a hospital wristband. I attached velcro dots to be able to take it on and off and reuse it.

I hit a snag in one aspect of my costume that I'm still waiting to correct. Freaky Fred's eyes. I knew getting contacts would give it that final, unnerving touch it needed. I'm blind as a bat so I had a hard time finding bright green contacts in a strong enough prescription, but I found a pair on a slightly sketchy website. Those contacts are still lost somewhere in New York. 😂 I'm still waiting on a replacement pair to arrive, but you will see in my main photos where I crudely photoshopped the green eyes in after my photoshoot in the hair salon.

Overall, I'm really happy with how it turned out and relieved that it didn't look like complete garbage, lol. I hadn't actually tried everything on completely until a couple hours before we got photos, but luckily it all came together. This may be my new favorite costume. I hope you all enjoy!

With love, Fred. ✂️