That was me back on Halloween of 1990. I know, it’s not exactly the best Mega Man kids’ costume ever made, but considering our circumstances back then, it was pretty amazing and as far as I’m concerned I have the best mom ever for making it for me.
In my typical “let’s wait until the last minute” fashion, I didn’t decide on my costume idea that year until the very week of Halloween, leaving my poor mother essentially two days to pull everything together. And let’s remember that this was still just before Mega Man 3 was set to be released, and the only solid images she had to base the design on was the art on these two delightful items:
Trying to reason a common design between these two is no easy task. She even analyzed the game sprite from the NES and a commercial for Captain N the Game Master that happened to come on tv to act as tie-breakers.
As you can see, we ultimately wound up with a turquoise sweat shirt and sweat pants combo with blue jogging shorts over top and a tall dark pair of boots. Yes, that’s a blue squirt gun I’m wielding, since the majority of the references used agreed that Mega Man carried a gun. I have no complaints, since I loved that my weapon could be used to to “zap” things (with freezing cold water). The helmet, the most intricate part of the design, was made by putting cloth over my father’s old leather rugby helmet, adding ears and some padding for the “stripe”. Last but not least, she made a plastic visor cut from a 7-Up bottle and fit it into place along the inside of the mask (the plastic wasn’t long enough to fit from ear to ear). I’m also wearing a glow in the dark button of some kind there, but I think that was something to do with rampant fears at the time that sending your kids out in costumes that were “too dark” would result in them being mowed down by a car. This did not happen, but I suppose I can’t prove it wasn’t thanks to that button. Thanks for everything, mom.
To all my readers: may all your Halloween memories be as just as incredible.
Your mom is amazing! I still think you should have kept the helmet!
The helmet wound up going back up in my mom’s attic, where eventually some rodents decided it would be the perfect place to build a nest. In the end, we had to put it out of commission.
Wicked costume, bro!
The fact that your mother did not base your costume more on the Bad Box Art Mega Man speaks volumes on how much she loves you.
I think she made a fine costume. 🙂
That plastic bottle was a stroke of genius. It took me years to before getting a similar idea for a project of mine. In just two days, that’s amazing. Your mother is simply amazing~
You prove once again that you’ve been a hardcore Mega Man fan for longer than I. 🙂 1990!
Considering the references available at the time, and the short time frame, this looks amazing! The fact that the end result is more accurate than the terrible-looking Mega Man from the Captain N cartoon is all I need to be convinced.
Your mom had made an awesome, IMHO.
Halloween is so much fun and when you have a mom that is so creative – well you are lucky! We usually went as hobo’s or gypsy’s – whatever we could rustle up. With a bunch of kids there was no way my mom could make us all costumes. Kudo’s to your mom!