Scenic Routes: Minecraft Halloween

On Thursday night, Skip finally mentioned that he MIGHT have an idea for a cool Halloween costume, and could I pick up some supplies for him.

Of course I will. This is a kid that NEVER asks for anything. He'd probably still be wearing his 3rd grade underwear if I didn't take it away and burn it. And school supplies for him are "Oh, whatever you've got, I can make work".

So Thursday evening, while he and Kelly were off at the church youth Chill Night, I was off at Joann's and Michaels, looking for SIX different colors of green card stock.

News flash: Card stock doesn't come in six shades in the main retail establishments. But I did find 4 unique colors of card stock, and it WAS on sale (because I think I would've completely balked at spending THIRTY DOLLARS on paper).. And then I threw in two colors of green duct tape (because it's fun, and who doesn't need duct tape?)

And then Thursday night, Friday, and Saturday, I tried not to kill him when he went completely OCD about the dimensions of his costume.

Tell me, wouldn't your eyes glaze over if you heard this: "Sixteen pixels represents a meter in the game, so I need to make sure that each of my card stock pixel squares is one SIXTEENTH of a meter square, and they need to correspond to this pixel-skin map, because there is only ONE skin for this creature in the game, and if I'm going to make this costume, it's going to be exact. And that cardboard isn't quite right, so can we go find cardboard that is a little bit wider?" and then, when I buy the science fair cardboard fold-out thingies, that to MY EYE look exactly right, he takes a box cutter to them, to shave off three inches in this one direction, and messes with the ENTIRE reason for their folding symmetry.

And then, when he's about 20% of the way through 'decorating' one side of the cardboard head of his costume, he looks like he's losing interest, so he goes and spends hours on the computer, playing games, while leaving a STORM of construction debris in the family room, RIGHT in the path of traffic from the garage to the kitchen.

I swear, someone needs to give me a medal for enduring this.

Anyways, with Ken coming down hard on him a couple of times (Honestly, teenagers have NO concept of time-management, or 'working to a deadline'. When I'd say "You *are* going to have this done for the H'ween party on Sunday?" he'd say "Well, if i don't, that's ok, too", like there were going to be ALL THESE OTHER EVENTS that a costume is appropriate attire for...? My. Wit's. End!), he ended up coming down to the wire, and getting a pretty decent costume out of things.

In fact, it's SUCH an exacting replica, that I should probably submit it to BoingBoing, because the current costume that they've got up on their web site for this is a serious JOKE compared to Skip's.

And with further ado, here is the Scariest Monster in the Minecraft Universe (or so says those in the know. For me? I think it's kind of cute and forlorn in a.... ssssssssssssssssssssss BOOM........ sort of way)

MineCraft Creeper:

The head:

The body:

(Note: that body is only 4 pixels deep - which worked out to 10 inches, after all the math was done, which makes it the perfect costume for a crazy-skinny kid, and not something his curvy mom could ever squeeze into)

The initial cobbling together of the Creeper:

And then he got packing tape, and made the entire thing waterproof:

(there was a chance that it might rain tonight. He didn't want all his meticulous pixel-map reading to go to waste.)

Then Ken got in the act, building the infrastructure. He put in cardboard shoulder straps, and a set of tabs and slots to keep the head perfectly aligned.