Halloween "How to make a homemade Wall-e Costume"
(...or at least, here's how WE made a homemade Wall-e Costume)

(Update 10/02/2010: Due to many requests, I've added detailed information and pictures for how Wall-e's tracks/treads were created for the costume (see sidebar below right).  Remember to Scroll to bottom of this page to see the finished costume!

OK. Along with all the music and business stuff, here's a personal note.  My son is a big fan of Wall-e and way in advance of Halloween, convinced us he wanted a Wall-e Costume.  After he convinced us and that he wasn't going to switch on us at the last minute, We looked for a Wall-e costume in the store with no luck, and when we finally found one on-line, they were sold out.  I was committed to making him one. 

The creative process started by going to the garage and saying, "does THAT box look like Wall-e?"...."Does THIS box look like Wall-e?"...  We finally started with a Costco-sized Egg-o frozen waffle box with arm-holes cut out, but eventually evolved into a Fellows shredder box.  The rest of the structure is done with tape, bag ties, paper towel tubes, styrofoam board, spray paint, paper plates, etc, and some silvery-looking cloth we found at the material store....and of course, duct tape. From the start, the rules were it had to be light weight and easy to get into and out-of, and it had to have tracks.  My son helped supervise the project all along the way. 

Here you can see the arms ("Twin hydraulic arm shovels"). These are gloves made from a paper towel tubes and a cardboard packing box for computer components. Covered with silver material and foam.  Yes, the fingers move.


The head is designed kind of like a baseball hat, worn on top of the head.  The arms and "shovel pinchers" are pretty much like big gloves, so my son can move them as he wants, and he can also "grab" things. 

Below: The back of the cap.


Below: The underside of the cap. Actually quite comfortable and light weight. Adjustable with velcro strap.




Below: Arms and head next to our mini- Wall-e toy that travels everywhere with us.




Below: Front view of the work-in-progress. Tracks/treads not attached yet.



Below: another angle of the work-in-progress.



Below: Here's my son next to the costume. Yes, he fits inside, but the legs (treads/tracks) aren't yet attached.  I'm trying to figure that out still.  I'll post the kid-inside-the costume picture once I figure it all out.  Wish me luck. Halloween is fast approaching, and Wall-e is wearing me out.     No wonder I'm so slow in getting new songs recorded for the next album. 



Below: Wall-e in resting/compressed position. (Yes, my son is inside)


Below: "Wall-e" visiting with little sister.





Below: Sister having fun with her brother "Wall-e" (real brother is inside the costume, with head retracted inside).


Below: Here's how you get in and out quickly.



Below: This is why I do these challenging projects


Finally, after deciding the costume was structurally sound enough to last for 5 minutes without losing a tread, we moved to the final touches; yellow paper, black trim, digital audio recording/playback unit (just for pretend. Geesh!)  and Wall-e Label.    I won't tell you how late we stayed up the night before our deadline due to unexpected complications.

Below: My son wearing the finished Wall-e costume in its first public appearance at the school costume parade.

Did You Enjoy This Article? I hope this information helps you with your own Wall-e costume construction. All images and information on this page are copyright 2007-2010 Peter Apel. You may reference and link to this page, but please do not copy. If you found this page fun or helpful, I hope you will take a listen to some of the music I have created, and if you like it, that you'll consider purchasing a song download or a CD.  ...or, for just the price of a click, we'd love it if you'd like our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter!  We put just as much love and work into each song as we did on the costumes, and we know you and your kids (or your kid's teacher) will enjoy the songs. We have great gifts for kids. Please check out our store! Thanks for visiting!  We'll update more soon!

How to make Wall-e Treads/Tracks For Your Wall-e Costume! (At least how WE did it)

The tracks were the most important part of the costume for my son. Just like Wall-e's body, we had to experiment with various approaches and materials. We thought about everything from styrofoam to cloth, but just like everything else, the more you study, the more you learn. As we started understanding how REAL tracks might work, our design evolved, and we finally settled in on an approach that resembled real-life parts, with the exception that our parts didn't move.   In a nutshell, the treads were made by wrapping long 10"-wide strips of prepared 3/16"-thick poster board (the tracks) around big rounded triangles made with 5/8"-thick poster board. The result being lightweight, triangular-shaped treads. I didn't take pre-assembly pictures of this part, but I'll do my best to explain anything you can't see. Primary Materials:  5/8" foam core board (for track-shaped triangles making up the internal structure as well as for attaching to body); 3/16" foam core board for the tracks themselves; masking tape; silver paint; hot glue WARNING: Kids, ask your parents for help.  Because of the use of items like cutting tools (a knife), paint, and a hot glue gun all of this should only be done with adult supervision.  Below: The treads themselves were made from 3/16" thick poster board from the hobby store. We used the kind with black paper on each side and black foam in the middle. It's best to buy a large poster board, since it is much easier to work with each tread as a single piece. Below: Cut the thin poster board to 2 long strips. The width is whatever final width you want your tracks to be. Once cut, prepare for painting.  Apply strips of masking tape, evenly spaced apart to one side of the tracks. This image represents the bottom side. The other side at this point is black with strips of tape going across. Below: Spray silver paint over the masking tape. Result should look something like this. Note: original plan was to remove the paint to have silver/black treads, but we really liked the appearance of the alternating silver shades, so we just left the tape. Below: After the paint dries, cut the silver side of the tread VERY carefully; just enough to cut through the paper and half of the foam core. Do NOT cut through the paper on the other side of the board. Now, when you bend the board along the cut-line, you'll see that it snaps open, leaving a very cool, metallic-looking bar that goes across the width of the tread. The uncut paper on the back side serves as the whole hinge & belt mechanism for holding the tracks together!  You now have a bendable tread that you can form around corners. It's almost like a real tread!  Wrap these tread "belts" over your large triangular forms (not shown), and hot-glue them in place to form two very sturdy stand-alone tracks.  Below: How to attach the tread to the body? We cut a number of long, 4"-wide pieces of the very strong 5/8" board to attach to the body and to attach the treads to one-another.  To attach to the body, we glued one to the inside of the tread and fed the other end up into the body through a hole. Inside the body, we did some other fancy stuff, so they would move up and down, but I recommend just gluing it inside the body.   We took another long piece of foam core and attached it to the front of Wall-e's two treads for added stability. The flat black color of this piece also helps to hide the child's legs to make the "rolling" illusion more complete. When you play the video, you'll see what a nice effect this is! (Note: Use common sense. If this bar is too close to your kid's legs it will create a tripping hazard. Our tracks were large enough that my son had plenty of room to walk.) Below: Bottom View.  Here's another view of the stabilization bar. Also, you can see how we cut-away probably an extra 8" in total underneath, so that the tracks would not interfere with my son's ability to walk. In our case, we cut it all the way back to the supporting triangle-shaped structure. Don't worry. Nobody can see that part of the costume, so you can cut away quite a bit.