A handcrafted Mothman costume that I created to wear out for Halloween. Featuring a full range of visibility, light-up eyes, and my most lightweight construction yet, Mothman represents years of design research through all my Halloween helmet builds!Role: Design, Fabrication, Art Direction, Video Production, Rocking It
I Like Scaring People
I love to tell stories about monsters and cryptids as much as I love to hear them, so when I detoured from a road trip the summer of 2024 to visit the Mothman museum in West Virginia, I knew I had to make Mothman happen for Halloween.
Specs
Let’s talk about features.
Built in LEDs make the eyes glow red when illuminated, a “chassis” built around a cowboy hat makes it lightweight and comfortable for hours of wear, and a black mesh fabric front means good enough visibility that I can read my phone screen through it (much better than the bird, which was my first helmet build. See that here.) I actually wore this out to bars on Halloween weekend, and it performed like a champ.
Process
I built the frame using wire and duct tape structured around a cowboy hat, allowing for a comfortable internal fit. Learning from my mistakes on past helmets, I left space at the back to glue in a bag of dried beans as counterweight for the eyes, ensuring the head doesn’t slide down. Everybody asks about the eyes, and this is the secret: glowing ball decorations from the dollar store! I always challenge myself to spend as little as possible on my costume each year, just to see what I can come up with within that constraint. I glued them into the frame with the battery compartments accessible from the inside.I had a bunch of felt left over after making the antennae, so I cut the feathers out by hand and glued them on to give the piece some texture
— a first for me, since I’ve just painted previous paper mache heads. (The antennae feathers are made from a felt “sleeve” that I sewed to fit over knitting needles.)The basic frame with the paper mache completed and the mesh face fabric installed. I find paper mache to be an excellent building material for Halloween helmets, since it’s lightweight, decently durable, and super cheap.