who framed roger rabbit?

there's a lot of boring text, so read if you're interested about the process, but at least skim through and check out our halloween 2010 costume pictures.

roger rabbit, benny, and judge doom!

it's been a few years that i had the idea to be roger rabbit and benny for halloween.  i really wanted to do this after visiting disneyland in april when i went on the roger rabbit ride where the ride cars are little benny's. i put the idea aside, but when i couldn't think of anything else i finally decided to do this, and convinced tim to be my nemesis, judge doom. the costumes were very simple to make, and i did bits and pieces at a time, but overall it took entirely too long to finish the 3 characters. for the most part (and for the first time) i basically made everything myself, which i'm pretty proud of.  tim had no time this year so i got his costume together and made his accessories for him. since i put so much time into this, i'm posting lots of pictures and explaining my processes. i'm actually not as excited about my own costume (like i usually am) by itself, but really excited for the three characters all together. roger rabbit, benny, and judge doom!

i'll start with judge doom, since his accessories are my favorite. his entire outfit was easy to find. tim already had a black vest, pants, shoes, and white shirt, and my dad had a bowtie. he grabbed a pair of black gloves, and i conveniently found his hat and glasses at the halloween store. i also bought some black fabric for his cape thing to attach to his long black coat, which we borrowed from my mom. but enough of the boring part!  the dip and shoe! my favorite parts.

the only concern we had about the judge doom costume was that people wouldn't know who he is. but if you know the movie, then you know judge doom. you must remember what i think is one of the most disturbing scenes in any movie. when judge doom kills a shoe in the dip. if you haven't seen it, or need to refresh your memory, watch it on youtube now.  this is legitimately one of the most horrifying scenes of all time and it makes me beyond sad to watch it. that poor, adorable little beeping shoe, i didn't think it was possible for a cartoon to show such emotion. we grabbed a pair of old shoes at the thrift store, and i painted the poor little fellow's colors and face directly onto the show. next, i asked my dad for a cylinder bucket that i could paint some dip on. he gave me a perfect handheld container, and i used the image on the dip buckets from the ride, rather than the movie. and thus we have the saddening but fantastic shoe and dip below!

the second best part about judge doom's costume was his hair. technically, judge doom's head is bald with white hair on top, but tim wasn't about to shave his head, so he cut his hair short all around and left it long on top. we curled it out, stuck it straight up, and sprayed it white (though it looked gray).. it looked pretty hilarious (to me anyway)

 

next was roger rabbit. the easy stuff: buying red scrubs, a white long sleeve shirt, yellow gloves, and a set of bunny ears, bowtie, and bunny tail. the bowtie was light pink, so i altered it by painting it blue with yellow dots. the ears were also not quite right, since the pink part was shimmery. i hate that look, so i painted light pink over top, and glued on some white hair that i spray painted orange. to go with my red pants, i glued strips of red fabric for suspenders and glued on some white buttons spray painted yellow. last for roger were his adorable big bunny feet! these were my absolute favorite part.

i bought a cheap oversized pair of slippers and some white fur. first i painted the bottoms of the slippers with the same pink paint that i used for the ears (even though no one would see it, because i am crazy). i covered the slippers with the fur, using hot glue. and my mom suggested i sew some black lines for his toes. so i took a needle and thread and stuck it through the front of the toes a bunch of times, resulting in perfect roger feet! i love them.

of course i finished by painting my own face like a bunny with a big pink nose. and with some heavy blue eyeshadow in place of the giant blue eyes roger has.

costume 3 is benny! what you need to make a benny: way too much time, gallons and gallons of spray paint, and unlimited gluesticks. for my first attempt to make another car for my wheelchair, my mom and i started cutting and shaping a gigantic cardboard box, which actually fit around me pretty well and had a nice box car shape. only problem was benny is more round and bubbly, and the cardboard box was so big that it would have been impossible to even get it in my car or any car. it also was entirely too frustrating to try to work with something so much bigger than me. long story short, it's difficult to do a lot of things when you're sitting and have limited mobility so i was basically sitting useless watching while my mom tried to adjust this huge box into a car. i gave up quickly and luckily remembered we still had my racecar from a few years ago. woo! so we recycled the racecar.. my dad helped tape the pieces together, made of this black plasticy cardboard type stuff, and we added sides for doors and that was that. i was going to use yellow tape to cover the entire structure, but i woke up to a nicely spray painted bright yellow car, thanks to my very helpful dad. i'm very grateful since he had to spray it white before starting with the yellow layers.

time for lots of details. my dad recently cleaned out the shed in our backyard, and since he doesn't know how to throw things away (a horrible habit i've apparently gotten from him), it ended up being a huge advantage for me. we had some pool noodles lying in the backyard that he's been asking whether or not to throw away or to keep them "just incase." so i cut them a part, and made bumpers with them. the blue i used for the front and back bumper (with smaller pieces hot glued on), and the red i used for the black on the sides around the wheels. it took a lot of spray paint to get them gray and black, so much my little fingers hurt, along with a sore wrist the next day. the wheels are store bought styrofoam wreaths (the back wheel and steering wheel sprayed black) with pieces of cardboard (sprayed gray) glued in the center.  benny's eyes were made from a styrofoam ball, cut in half, with cardboard painted black glued around it.  for his mouth, i just cut a giant piece of white cardboard in the shape of his happy mouth and drew/painted his teeth and tongue. the last thing i needed, but couldn't figure out what to use, was all the thin gray tubing around his eyes, mouth, and top. my mom came up with the idea to use rope that we got at the fabric store and sprayed gray/silver, hurting my little fingers yet again. i glued the rope in each of those areas and used the extra for benny's door handles.

the hardest part was figuring out how to glue the black noodles around the tires and on the sides smoothly. i ended up cutting pieces for each tire and hot gluing them on individually, which took the longest out of anything. pool noodles don't like to curl (or stay), so it was ungodly frustrating. no one should have to use so much hot glue at one time.  after gluing on all the other elements, i glued each wheel onto the car structure, then a piece to connect them in the middle. the last step i did was paint big black rectangles where the taxi checkers should go, and finished by using yellow tape to make it checkered, which lucky for me the yellow tape was the exact same color as the yellow spray paint. and we have benny!

up close photo below! you can kind of see judge doom's hair. thanks for reading about me wasting my life on a halloween costume. i wouldn't have it any other way.