Pac Man Costume Tutorial

One very undeniably suburban thing about me is that I happen to be somewhat crafty and I don't pretend to deny that. Every year I make my kids costumes. Outside of the Royals in the playoffs or a good Wildcat football season, it's probably the highlight of my fall. My husband keeps warning me that some day my son is going to refuse to take my costume "suggestion" and will insist on a store bought super hero. I haven't lost him yet. When I suggested Pac Man, and his baby sister could be a ghost, and they can chase each other, he was so excited he asked if he could have his costume right then. And then he encouraged me through the process to get to work so he could play with his costume. I found some cardboard and foam board tutorials, but I decided to try using foam. Glad I did! It isn't too uncomfortable and as he likes to pretend to eat people and run into things it's definitely safe and durable for a 5 year old to wear and play with. Since I didn't find any others using foam I thought I'd try my hand at posting a tutorial. Note, using foam is more costly than cardboard, but I think it was worth it.

I ended up buying 2 of these pre-packaged 22"x22"x2" foam squares for the circle parts. Then I bought a yard of 1" foam for the middle.

First I cut circles out of the square pieces utilizing the full width of the square.  For the mouth I cut out from center a little bit to make sure there was room for my boy inside.

After cutting out the mouth, I did the arm holes. I held it up to my son and marked where his arms should go. Then I cut out a circle in that general area. I tried to make sure to leave enough foam at the top to be sturdy, but not to bury my son's head inside.

I did the same on the second square to make the other side of Pac Man. Next I took the long piece and cut it in half.

Then I busted out the hot glue gun for some serious Pac Man assembling. I glued the long pieces on top of one Pac Man side. I was concerned Pac Man wouldn't be tall enough song was sure to add the middle part so that it overlapped the circle sides. This added a little more height and also made sure it was a nice round circle instead of the jagged edges I cut.

When the first piece was done I marked where the head hole should be

When the first one ran out I glued the second long piece in place and cut it to length. 

Then I cut the head hole and the bottom. I used my son to figure out how big to make these.

Then I hot glued the other side of Pac Man on.

And then cut out the mouth pieces from the excess 1" foam. I measured my Pac Mand mouth space and cut to size.

Then I cut out and glued the mouth pieces into place.

Once Pac Man was glued together (and several times I had to ward off my sons attempts to jump on it), it was time to make Pac Man yellow.  I used yellow felt. I bought WAY more than I needed so I'm not sure how much you actually need, but enough to cover Pac Man. I traced around Pac Man leaving about a couple inches margin. No need to be exact, just need enough margin to overlap a bit. 

Do this for both sides. Then get some spray adhesive.

And spray glue the yellow felt on the sides. (This can be messy and make surrounding areas a little tacky - I did mine outside.)

Next I cut the arm holes like this. Then I spray glued the triangles into the hole, but maybe you can skip spray gluing these and just hot glue them. I ended up needing to hot glue these down due to sliding arms in and out - the spray adhesive wasn't cutting it on these.

Spray glue the center strip too. The cut the bottom area out. I did it again with slits and glued the remainder inside so it wrapped a little. Again probably hot glue these wrap pieces.

Do the same with the head hole and hot glue.

Now Pac Man needs some black felt inside his mouth. I measured what I needed and cut the black felt slightly smaller to leave some yellow around the edges.  I spray glued it, but ended up having to hot glue the edges because it was coming off. (Apparently I forgot to take a pic of this step, but it's not difficult).

And finally Pac Man's eyes. I found varying eye shapes online, but decided to go with the smaller Pac Man shape because it was the easiest. I used a cup to draw the circle and then cut a wedge out. I hot glued the eye to both sides and then Pac Man was complete.

 

And there you have a fun soft foam Pac Man. My son loved this costume. He put it on about every other day until Halloween (and I'm sure it won't stop there). Though his little sister didn't quite chase him as much as he wanted, he did try "eating" everything in site.