Disney/Pixar’s Up is one of my favorite Pixar movies! I know we could’ve easily dressed up as Carl and Ellie or as Carl and Russell for Halloween but I wanted more of a challenge so I decide we could be Russell and Kevin the Bird (Snipe!) Most of the female Kevin costumes involved wearing a colorful tutu, but I wasn’t a fan. Then I stumbled up on this version that Creatively Christy made for her kids and I decided I wanted to make an adult version!
Since this post is quite long, here’s some quick anchors to the different parts of the two costumes:
Side note: Forgive me for the low quality photos! I made this costume back in 2013, before phone cameras were crystal clear >.<
Supplies for Kevin Costume – Body:
- Several 9″ x 12″ craft felt sheets – You can get an assorted colors set if you plan on doing more projects or just buy the sheets individually at an art store
- One 36″ x 36″ black craft felt sheet OR an old black shirt/hoodie
- One black T-shirt (not needed if you use the hoodie method)
- Fabric scissors (Regular scissors don’t cut through felt as cleanly! I recommend a big pair of fabric scissors if you want to cut multiple felt sheets at a time (see step 2’s note!)
- Hot glue gun + several glue sticks (I definitely used more than pictured here 😅)
- 2 fabric straps
- Several large safety pins
Instructions:
1. Cut a half circle out of the large black felt sheet. I folded the sheet in half the diagonal way and used chalk to mark a consistent radius from the top corner to make a quarter circle. Once you cut along that radius, you’ll end up with two quarter circle sheets and you’ll need to just sew the straight ends up together.
2. Cut out rows of felt feathers. I used an old folder for my feather shape but you can use any sheet of paper or card stock. I realized I could fit 4 feathers on one sheet of felt (the long way), so I folded the felt sheet in half, secured the two pieces together with some pins, traced the outline of the template, and cut out the outline along with gaps in between to yield 2 rows of feathers.
Note: After I realized how long it would take to make enough feathers for my entire cape, I enlisted the help of my then boyfriend (now husband!) Jeff to help me stack 2 folded sheets of felt to cut 4 rows of feathers at a time. Here’s where having a thick fabric scissor really makes a difference. Also, check out the amount of felt scrap leftovers there were! Definitely enough to make a small rainbow something…
3. Lay out your feathers on top of the black felt in your desired color pattern. This helps you check to see if you actually have enough feathers, and get them in place for gluing. If there are any gaps in the spaces where the feathers are spread in an arc, I just used single or double feathers to fill them up.
4. Use the hot glue gun to glue the top of each feather row to your cape. I specifically avoided gluing the entire feather down to 1) let the feathers move more freely and 2) not use as many glue gun sticks, because those guys melt down quickly! We started from the bottom most feathers and made our way up to the top.
5. To make the arm straps on the back side of the cape, you’ll need someone else’s help to mark the spots for where to fasten the fabric strips. Didn’t have anyone take a picture of us for this but essentially I draped the cape around my shoulders and Jeff marked the top and bottom areas surrounding my armpit and we just pinned the fabric straps (with some slack) until it fit properly. If you are using a hoodie then you can skip this step!
6. Now that the cape is done, time to make the body! Repeat steps 3 and 4 on the black t-shirt/front of hoodie in the pattern you want.
Supplies for Kevin Costume – Head/Beak
- Navy blue cap
- Cotton balls
- Hot glue gun
- 2 foam paint rollers
- Peacock feathers (or if you don’t want to do this head/beak at all, you could just wear a peacock headband)
- Blue pipe cleaners
- 3 Yellow felt sheets
- Red paint
- White foam sheet or thick card stock should work too
- Black and green markers
Unfortunately I don’t have many photos for this section because it was late at night and I was pretty much winging it because nobody at the time had a tutorial for how to make the head without either 1) wearing the actual beak on your nose or 2) making it out of paper maché.
Instructions:
1. Attach the 2 foam paint rollers together. You could probably wrap tape around the center but for some odd reason I decided to unravel a paper clip to stick the two foam pieces together. After that I used a scissor to cut off the edge of the foam to form the beak shape.
2. Wrap the foam rollers with the yellow felt and glue gun the two pieces to form the shape of the beak. You can also use red felt to do the front of the beak but I didn’t have any so I painted the front of the beak with red acrylic paint.
3. Stuff the beak with extra cotton balls so that it looks more rounded and then attach it to the cap using a hot glue gun. I think I ran out of glue towards the end so I had to safety pin the last piece of yellow felt (the eye shape)
4. Fold your pipe cleaner in half and twist it around the base of the feather’s stem. The peacock feathers I bought were a bit large so I plucked off the bottom feathers to make this stem. I forget how I secured the pipe cleaner to the back of the cap but I’m going to guess by glue gunning a small piece of felt across the pipe cleaners and onto the cap.
5. Cut out two white circles from the foam sheet for the eyes. Outline the white circle with green and draw a black oval for the actual eye inside the white circle. I had my friend do this because I didn’t trust my circle drawing skills and I didn’t have enough white foam to make another eye if I made a mistake xD
Completed Kevin Costume with head, body and cape:
Clothing for Russell’s Outfit
- Yellow polo
- Orange bandana
- Brown shorts (This pair on Amazon can also convert to long pants!)
- Long white hiking socks
- Hiking boots
- Bookbag
- If you want to go the extra mile, you can also probably find kids camp toys for the rest of the backpack accessories.
Supplies for Russell’s Accessories:
- 1-1/2″ Heavy duty self-adhesive felt furniture pads (if you want to wear all the badges, you’ll need at least 35, but you can feature less if you don’t feel like going all the way)
- Several sheets of sticker paper
- Scissors
- Brown fabric (for the sash)
- Safety pins
- Yellow cap
- 2 Orange, 1 yellow, 1 green, and 1 brown felt sheet(s)
- Hot glue gun
- Short wooden dowel
Instructions:
1. Print Russell’s Wilderness Explorer badges on sticker paper. I went with clear matte sticker paper because I didn’t mind the texture of the felt pad showing underneath.
2. Cut out badge stickers and stick onto the felt furniture pads. As you can see from the photo, I forgot to measure the size of the badge before printing it so there is a little beige border around the actual badge sticker. Since it was such a thin line, I didn’t think it was a big deal but if you want to be exact, be sure to size up/down your badges to match your felt pads width!
3. Measure, cut and secure your brown sash. Jeff forgot to take a picture of this but I believe one of us had an old brown window shade lying around so we cut it up, his mom sewed the edges so they weren’t frayed, then we safety pinned the bottom together (in case we ever wanted to adjust the length for someone shorter to wear)
4. Stick the felt pad badges to your brown fabric in the right order, leaving the space for Ellie’s badge. I would test how well the felt pad adhesive sticks to your sash – I’ve seen some people use a hot glue gun the badges when they’re using a felt sash. The heavy duty felt pads I got stuck pretty well to my window drape fabric without any additional adhesive.
5. Print the Wilderness Explorer Logo and cut the pieces out to trace on your colored felt. Cut the different pieces of felt and assemble 2 badges. Use the hot glue gun to attach the badge to your yellow cap.
6. Cut 2 pieces of orange piece of felt into triangles and glue onto both sides of cardstock or cardboard to make a solid base for the flag. Use the hot glue gun to attach the badge to the flag and again to attach to the wooden dowel.
7. Put on your outfit! Finishing touches: tie the orange bandana around your next, tuck your wooden dowel into your backpack with it sticking out, and put on a winning smile 😀
I know it was lengthy, but I hope this tutorial was helpful! Good luck and Happy Halloween!
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I’m going to try and make this – but I have very little artistic ability. How long did it take you to make the Kevin costume?
Hey Rachel, I believe in you! Once you make a template for the feather shape, most of the work is just cutting and attaching the feathers! It’s hard for me to remember how long it took me since I made this a couple years ago but I’m going to estimate almost an entire day? I think I was a little over ambitious with the amount of feathers on the cape. Here are some ways to make the Kevin costume simpler/quicker:
– use a thick construction paper instead of felt for the feathers
– don’t make a cape at all and just decorate the front and back of a black shirt
– cut larger feather pieces so you don’t have to cut as many
– instead of the custom bill sticking out of the cap for his beak, you can just paint the front of a cap yellow and red
Hope this helps! 🙂
Thanks for the useful instructions- very clever! All I needed was Kevin’s head. Wish I could post a picture here.
Thanks! I may use the Kevin costume next week for a spirit day at work. Or else I’ll just wear a t-shirt if I get lazy…. But you made it look so easy.
Heh it’s not too hard, just tedious 😅😅
Here are some ways to make the costume simpler/quicker:
– use a thick construction paper instead of felt for the feathers
– just glue onto the front and back of a black shirt instead of a cape
– cut larger feather pieces so you don’t have to cut as many
– instead of the custom bill sticking out of the cap for his beak, you can just paint the front of a cap yellow and red
So cute!! Are Russell’s stickers downloadable? I followed the link but couldn’t find a spot to save them!
Sorry for the late reply!! I just right clicked the image on that page and clicked Save!
I used this design to make a Kevin costume this year and after like 30 hours and $$$ in felt, I loved the outcome! Thanks so much for this tutorial!
👏🏼👏🏼 I’m glad the tutorial was helpful and that you loved the outcome!! Now you have an awesome costume that you can continue to be proud of! I’ve had friends ask to borrow it too 😆