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Great Optical Illusion Costume: A Gorilla and his Caged Kid

This is my son Thomas Firestone. He is 14 years old and lives in Maple Grove Minnesota. Last year just after Halloween we were talking about how boring some of our costumes seemed to be getting. Store bought masks were not doing it for us any more. We got to talking about ideas that would be really neat for 2012. Maybe we would attempt to create our own costume. While this conversation was occurring we decided to stop by Target to grab some groceries. We love Halloween and decided hit the left over Halloween section to see what was on clearance.

There it was. For $15.00 a fill size adult Gorilla costume. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I actually grew up in the city of Orlando. Down that way is a road called International Drive. It’s a big tourist area. Back in 1989 I remember seeing a guy walking around handing out flyers to tourist while being stuck with a gorilla carrying him in a cage. I asked my son Tommy if he wanted to really try something crazy. That’s how it started.

On and off we worked on his costume for about 3 months. We used everything from PVC pipe, to foam board to bring it to life. Some of the cage is Styrofoam  The actual kit is supported by a backpack and para cord which is covered by his red shirt. We even mounted a mannequin head on the frame to give the gorilla a nice pair of realistic eyes and head shape. We hope you enjoy his costume as much as we enjoyed making it. We have included a few shots of the building process.

This is my son Thomas Firestone. He is 14 years old and lives in Maple Grove Minnesota. Last year just after Halloween we were talking about how bori

This is my son Thomas Firestone. He is 14 years old and lives in Maple Grove Minnesota. Last year just after Halloween we were talking about how bori

This is my son Thomas Firestone. He is 14 years old and lives in Maple Grove Minnesota. Last year just after Halloween we were talking about how bori



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