These strips can be cut if you're making a smaller child-sized version. Just trim the end off if it's too long - you won't damage the strip by doing this.
Or, it's easy to bend the strips around and make loops for the hands and feet if you're strapping the costume onto a munchkin.
Lay out a set of close-fitting clothes on your floor or table. We'll build the suit on top of the clothes, so we get all the proportions right.
Place your strip on top of the clothes to approximate your stick person shape. The full strips work for an average sized adult, and there's lots of wiggle room for length adjustment -- for a taller stick person make the hips a little narrower, etc.
For the chest portion, use clear or white zip ties to attach the two strips going up the middle of the chest together.
For the main body harness, we'll use zip ties poked through velcro strips. The One-Wrap Velcro straps have a softer side and a grabby side. Use an awl to poke two holes in your velcro. Thread the zip tie through from the soft side to the grabby side, then loop over the Neon strip and back down through the other hole.
Cut each velcro strip long enough to go around each body part plus a few extra inches for overlap. If you'll be wearing this someplace cold, remember to account for the thickness of your jacket.
I made velcro straps for:
- Upper arms
- Wrists
- Chest
- Hips (two zip ties hip-width apart on this strap)
- Knees
- Ankles
I used about 20' of velcro strips for this adult-sized costume.
Head
To make the head shape, I found an old bike helmet with vents that go clear through. Check your local thrift store if you don't have an old helmet on hand.
Zip tie the head loop to the helmet through the vents.
Zip tie the two ends of the strip together to form a teardrop shape. Add one more fairly loose zip tie above the first one. Leave this one loose enough that you can slide it up and down. When you put on the helmet, slide the zip tie up to create the round head shape, and slide it back down to make it easy to remove the helmet.
