Denver Comic Con DIY Cosplay: 'Big Hero 6'

Not perfect, but it'll work. My older son's Megabot prop to use at Denver Comic Con this weekend. — Not perfect, but it’ll work. My older son’s Megabot prop for Denver Comic Con. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

Last month, our family had a fun time with costume preparations for our Big Hero 6-themed family cosplay for Denver Comic Con. While most of our parts were commercial-off-the-shelf purchases from places like Amazon and our local craft store, some of our items had to be homemade. I used a Pinterest board to collect all of the ideas we found.

For a refresher on the looks we were trying to achieve with our sons, check out our inspiration pictures for Hiro and Fred.

Iron-On T-shirts

With the help of some iron-on printer paper, I made the T-shirts with simple $5 T-shirts from our local hobby store.

Iron-on printer paper is a godsend. Photo: Patricia Vollmer — Iron-on printer paper is a godsend. We were also pleased with Fred’s pendant. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

Fred’s Pendant

The green pendant around our Fred’s neck is homemade from Fimo clay. It turned out really well; bright and sturdy. I used plastic lacing for the cord.

Fred’s Knit Cap

I’m afraid time got the better of me for Fred’s knit cap. I found some great hand-crocheted ideas online, and bought some some blue-green yarn. But then, I got diverted—and diverted again… and again… and again.

Sigh…

I ended up not starting on the knit cap until mid-week just before the con, and I feverishly finished it about 12 hours before we headed out the door!

Hiro’s Megabot

Our older son asked about whether we could buy a toy Megabot to carry around the con. He asked this question about two weeks prior to the event, and some basic interneting yielded no such toys. We saw a cute Megabot flash drive, but it ships from China, so there was no way we’d get it in time. We saw numerous ideas for making homemade Megabot props out of paper, styrofoam, or Fimo clay.

We didn’t trust the paper or foam versions lest it gets destroyed during the con, so we tried our hands at the Fimo clay version, with guidance from this Spanish-language video we found on YouTube.

Rolling out the Megabot body and limbs. Pro tip: Do what you require with the lightest colors first, then work with the black clay. As you can see, we did everything in reverse and spent a lot of time scrubbing our hands before handling the white and yellow clay. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

My son assembles the Megabot, using wooden kabob skewers as supports. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

The Final Result

Dr. Callaghan

My husband pondered quite a bit about how to fit in with our family theme. We started investigating the “evil” Dr. Callaghan with the kabuki mask, but we didn’t give ourselves enough time to make it successful. Instead, he came up with a clever, but subtle, idea.

Look closely. My husband had a fun time making up a San Fransokyo Tech Showcase badge. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

My husband quite literally paused *Big Hero 6* to capture the logos and the name of the robotics lab for this faux conference badge. Photo: Patricia Vollmer.

Feedback from DCC? It was all very subtle… perhaps too subtle. My husband insists that no one noticed he was anything other than a guy attending a con in khakis and a sweater vest. My sons found their doppelgängers and I got some photos of with them.