Baymax from “Big Hero 6″
The Baymax costume was a bit of a technical experiment. We wanted to give the illusion that Baymax was flying and the child was dressed as Hiro riding on Baymax’s back, just like in the movie. But how do you make a 6 foot tall costume lay horizontally and be stable? We learned a lot of new techniques while building this costume. Here is how we did it.
We needed a way to attach the frame work to Reese’s wheelchair. We created 6 attachment points since we were also using the wheelchair armrests for the last 2 points of attachment. 2 painted connection points at the bottom front, and 4 painted connection points for the back of the wheelchair.
A PVC frame for the front of the wheelchair.
Experimented with a 3D paper model to create the head of Baymax, and a paper model of the chest of Baymax ended up being too small to fit the frame we built. We needed to scale up the model to 128%.
Building out the chest, head, hips and one thigh out of floor mat foam.
Most parts completed and glued. Ready for sanding, priming, and painting.
Baymax head 2.0. The head was too small and the detail was not as good. So we rebuilt it to match the scale of the rest of the body. We added a foam head inside the helmet to help keep the form.
Pink insulation foam board were used for support in the legs. They are lightweight and rather sturdy. The costume began to take shape as we assembled it onto a wooden frame built to match the size and dimensions of the wheelchair.
After caulking all the seams, we now started painting them red.
All the red parts get their first coat of many coats of paint.
Black fingers getting ready for fist bumps. Feet, joints and knees were painted black.
A finished helmet, and the hands are assembled. Reese shows off his completed Baymax helmet.
As we worked on the mechanism to hold the wings and support the weight of the arms, we needed to build a wooden frame in the chest of Baymax.
Some assembly required. The neck was built to get just the right angle for Baymax’s head.
The legs are built up from the ground.
Completed legs with hips. Foam insulation is sticking out the top.
Added spray foam inside the arms to fill in all the holes. Once the spray foam stopped expanding and hardened, we trimmed it back and then painted it black.
The completed Baymax costume still on the temporary frame to match the wheelchair.
When the costume is standing upright, it is quite tall. I am 6 foot tall just for reference.
Add two tap lights to the feet with velcro. $4.00 for both lights. Almost a no-brainer to go this route to make the feet light up.
Added some purple to complete the look. The finished costume made its debut at Kansas City Comic Con 2015.
