The Space Race + my face.

October 13, 2009 6:17 PM

CostumeFilter: I want to go as Sputnik for Halloween. How to best accomplish this?

Caveat: I'm going to be playing cello in a concert that night, so I can't do anything that would hinder arm movement or sitting down. The obvious solution is to fashion a Sputnik hat (or is it? How else could I do it?), but I'm kind of at a loss.

1. How do I make a perfect, shiny sphere and
2. Attach it to my head? (or should I make my entire head part of the sphere?)
3. What should the 4 metal arms be made of and
4. How do I attach them to the sphere so as to minimize eye-poking-out of both me and the people sitting behind me?

posted by coppermoss to clothing, beauty, & fashion (6 answers total)

When I made a sputnik I used a spherical Chinese paper lantern and covered it in foil and wooden dowels covered in foil.

I also had a tape recorder in my pocket with the official sputnik beeping coming from it.

I think this post needs the beepbeepbeep tag
posted by bottlebrushtree at 6:23 PM on October 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

Lots of old open-face motorcycle helmets are pretty close to spherical (at least for the back and sides), and they'd still allow you to talk and eat and drink.

However you do your costume, if you're playing cello, you have to make the Sputnik Sound.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:25 PM on October 13, 2009

I'm thinking you could perhaps make the top half of the sphere into a hat, and paint your face silver. You could use a bowl and maybe an open face hood spraypainted silver. Then, using silver elastic, attach four lengths of it to the hat construct, down to four points on your waist. It would stretch and contract with you. Wear black, sparkly clothing, with maybe an earth or a moon on your hip or thigh?
posted by Mizu at 6:25 PM on October 13, 2009

Colander painted silver, silver face paint, four telescoping radio antennas sticking up and back? That way the eye-poking is limited to giants sneaking up on you, and they probably have it coming.

How about a black torso and then pants/skirt that looks like the earth and sky?
posted by chazlarson at 6:41 PM on October 13, 2009

Here you go. Get two of the half-spheres and go to town.

http://www.mirrors-r-us.com/surveillance.htm
Use some lightweight Sintra, 3/4" thick for the base-of-the-antennae details, and some inexpensive fishing rods for the actual antennae. Get some aluminum plumbing tape to silver whatever details you have and you're done.
I might add blinking LEDs to the end of the fishing rods. Not accurate, but it gives that "satellite" feel.
These make it pretty trivial:
http://www.elexp.com/opt_6bid.htm
posted by asavage at 9:14 PM on October 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

Can you attach a smaller sputnik to the end of your bow, as if you accidentally captured it?
posted by theora55 at 11:39 AM on October 14, 2009