Awesome Homemade Futurama Bender Costume for Halloween

My 9 year old son was determined to have a Bender costume for Halloween. In addition, he had a lot of input as to how he wanted his costume designed.

It took approximately 15 to 20 hours to make over a two month period. Bender made his debut in the Atlanta Five Points Halloween Parade, and was loved by many. My son was beaming as the crowd shouted, and he was the subject of many photos! As a result, it was well worth the time invested.

He received numerous compliments, and was told that it was the best costume some had seen that day. Because there were thousands of festive costumes to compete with, he was pleased!

Making the Bender Costume

Shaping the head was the most time consuming part of creating the costume. In order to form a cylinder, I used cardboard and rounded it. I utilized a lot of masking tape to secure and shape the cardboard into a dome for the head. The oval shaped hood of the eyes was also made out of cardboard rounded and secured with masking tape. Acrylic paint worked great for painting the head and eyes. While I originally spray painted the head, additional masking tape had to be applied throughout the process and I touched it up using acrylic paint.

Due to my son’s eyes aligning with the mouth of the Bender head, he could see easily and it added about 8 inches of height. The “teeth” were made out of a plastic knitting screen. The body was relatively simple and I cut the insulation material to fit around my son’s body and used heavy duty paper clips to secure.

In order to make the arms, the air ducts were painted gray to match the suit. I also painted the salad bowls gray. My son preferred to customize his bender and glued an assortment of metal objects like nuts and bolts to the body. Additional accessories like a fake cigar can be obtained at Spencer’s but we opted to leave this out so the costume would be age appropriate.