DIY Screen Slaver Costume from Incredibles 2

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I seriously thought my costume making days were over. Last year my boys both found store bought costumes and I thought I’d retired my DIY costume-making skills.

But then my 8-year old said he wanted to be Screen Slaver from the Incredibles 2. Not to give away the plot, but there is a scene where a pizza delivery boy is “Screen Slaver” and he thought it was so cool. They don’t sell the costume, and the only thing I could find online was someone who had used a 3D printer to make the goggles! Super cool but not something I have, lol.

I honestly had no idea how to light up goggles and make this costume, but I gave it a shot and it turned out to be rather simple and he LOVED it!

What’s great about this costume is that you may have a lot of what you need on hand. Basically you need to paint/make the goggles and the mouth grill and that’s pretty much it! You probably have a black shirt and black pants (or gray pants) around the house and the gloves are altered only because there weren’t any in stock ANYWHERE.

Make sure to see my notes along the way for other options for each step. The one thing I absolutely would not change is this glow paint. It was awesome and I had to try out several to find one that worked and actually glowed. I considered putting LED lights, or something like that, but ultimately decided that probably wasn’t good for his eyes in the long run.

My son was extremely happy about his costume and still wears it long after Halloween has passed and it’s still holding up well and even glowing a month later as long as we “charge” it.

If you make this costume, let me know how it turns out in the comments!

MATERIALS NEEDED:

Here is a list of what you will need to make this costume. I like to paint so I had some of these items on hand, but I will share more in the “Goggles” section if you want to try other methods.

• • Black Ski Mask – I used THIS ONE.
  • Aviator Goggles – I used THESE.
  • THIS awesome glow paint (seriously I have some left and am trying to figure out what else I can use it on!).
  • Silver Paint – I used THIS KIND.
  • Black Rubber Gloves – THESE are the ones shown. See my notes about gloves in the “Gloves” part!
  • A Glazing medium like THIS one.
  • 1 Black Soft Foam Board – Hobby Lobby had them for sale in small squares.
  • 1 piece of any color card stock
  • Strong glue – THIS one is still holding strong!
  • Plain Black Shirt (Old Navy had an inexpensive one).
  • Plain Black Pants (We used our flag football pants but Screen Slaver could also wear a pair of dark gray jeans if you have it).
  • Any shoes – Black if you have them. We happened to have hand-me down glow in the dark shoes believe it or not.

Please Note: The one thing I didn’t think of, is when my son wasn’t facing me I could barely see him in the dark! Even though it wouldn’t look as authentic, if I were to do this over I would’ve put some glow bracelets on him or maybe a glow stripe down the seam of the pants. He was so hard to see in a pack of kids unless he was facing me!

It’s all about the grill!

What I really enjoyed about this costume is that really once you do the grill and goggles you are pretty much done! I had to alter the gloves because I couldn’t find rubber ones when I realized last minute that he wears gloves, but other than that, it’s paint and all set!

Download this pattern HERE.

At the very end I made the decision to trim the grill at a diagonal, but this pattern will get you started.

3. Stamp.

I decided the best way to tackle this was to make a stamp pattern on card stock (regular paper might absorb the paint). All you need to do is cut out the pattern, paint it with the silver paint, and while it’s wet stamp it onto the black soft foam material. Then just fill it in by hand and your all set!

Once the silver paint is dry, you can paint with the glow-in-the-dark paint each time you do a layer on the goggles.

At the stage where I glued it to the goggles, I decided it looked a little too square and cut in at a diagonal. Before you paint too much, and invest time, hold it up to the goggles and decide if you want to do any trimming. It just took a tiny bit of snipping!

Goggles Goggles!

I used the glazing medium to cover up the shiny silver on the goggles. When you look at Screen Slaver, he looks a little eerie so I wanted to create that effect.

Lastly, onto the glow paint. The glow paint intentionally (according to their website) is thick. In order to have it spread a little easier you can mix it with a little water. You’ll see in the shot where I turned off the lights the little tray I mixed it in is also glowing!

I did at least three coats, allowing it to dry in between each, and then tested it. You can hold it to any light for a few minutes to “charge it” and then check and see if it’s as bright as you want.

I tried a few different brands of glow paint that I found at Hobby Lobby and they did not light up AT ALL. Folk Art Super Glow was one of them.

Luckily, Amazon had THIS ONE and it came in one day – just before the Halloween pumpkin carving party we were invited too, whew!

3. Test it!

*I didn’t test it out, but you may be able to use primer if you have that on hand instead to get the same results. You want it to take away the smooth and shiny look, but not cover up the silver entirely. If you do cover up the silver, you can then paint it with the silver paint. However, the glazing medium dried clear enough that I could add the glow paint and not use a coat of silver paint.

“Goop” it together.

I’ve broken up with Super Glue. It doesn’t seem to be holding my projects together very well so I tried “Goop” on this one. I’m happy to say it not only stayed glued for a pre-halloween party, Trick-or-Treating, but also my son is still wearing this around the house a month later and it’s still going strong. Goop for the win!

Gloves

They have kid’s gloves for The Incredibles costumes that would be perfect, but even at the time of writing this they are out of the child size! I went to many stores and looked on line but no luck. I ended up altering Batman gloves, and it worked fine, but if you can find the Incredibles version you will be able to skip this step. Better yet, if you have any friends whose kids were Dash last year, borrow their gloves!

But if you are like me and can only find Batman, just cut off the side and color any symbol in with the sharpie. It all looks the same in the dark.

Done!

Ski Mask

The ski mask didn’t have much of a mouth-hole so I cut one bigger. You couldn’t see it under the mouth grill. I’m in Southern California so finding a ski mask wasn’t easy. You may want a thinner material because he did get hot.

Charge it!

On the day you will use this costume, make sure to put it out in the sun for a few hours or under a lamp. Get it nice and charged up! Two hours in the sun and it lasted the whole time we were trick-or-treating, not bad right?

And there you have it!

Screen Slaver Being “Sorted” by a Harry Potter hat.

This costume was so easy to run around in he totally wore himself out! “Mom, let me just lie here on the sidewalk a minute.”

I can’t wait to see a bunch of Screen Slavers running around. Or barely see them, except their glowing mask!