The Age of Childhood

Happy November!  I've spent the last week working on my Halloween costume, which is why the posts were lacking.  My friend Mandy texted me early in the week to see if I wanted to go out for Halloween, and since I was off work on Sunday, I agreed!  That meant I had to come up with a costume before Saturday though.  I considered doing Leia or Han Solo from Star Wars, but Andrew was already making an epic 'Luke on Dagobah' costume, complete with a paper mache Yoda coming out of a backpack.  So, no Star Wars for me.  Then it hit me.  I could be Link from The Legend of Zelda video games!

We spent hours playing Ocarina of Time on the good old N64 Nintendo system, and I knew that it wasn't so obscure that I would have to explain it to people all night.  Also, it would be pretty easy to put together in a few days.  I could find a green tunic at Goodwill, buy a cheap plastic sword, and get some foam board from Hobby Lobby to make the shield.  It turned out to be a fun project.  The sword was easy; all I had to do was paint some of the hilt accents blue.

I got a piece of grey foam board for the shield and cut out the general shape.  The interior background is blue, so I painted it the same blue as the sword for continuity.  

After that I cut out the interior shapes to add a little texture to the flatness.

After a paint job I glued the pieces down.  It looked good, but it needed a little more dimension, so I cut some random geometric pieces to go around the edge in the grey part.

Turned out pretty good, I think!  The last step was to add some handles on the back so I could hold it as a real shield.  I picked up some brown duct tape at Hobby Lobby, planning to use it to fashion a sheath for the sword, and it turned out to work on the shield as well.  I was all ready for Halloween the next night!

(photos collected from media.moddb, by e.hunt, r.hunt, and gamasutra)