This is the Hindu goddess Kali. She is goddess of death and destruction, and represents the ferocious and aggressive aspects of the female.
I fucking love her. She is my inspiration for my own costume this Halloween.
I will be creating a costume that has six arms; four are false and two are my own. Each false arm has an elbow joint and a rotation axis at the shoulder. This will allow me to operate the arms and move them in several directions. These arms are the most complicated part of the costume, so they are dealt with first.

These are the templates I used to cut out the lower and upper arms from blue foam. These are sheets of foam glued together. I used the dimensions from my own arms to calculate the length and width. I added a few extra inches because I’m carving the blocks down after.

This photo shows the areas that will be cut away to form the elbow joint. This idea was based on action figure toys and the way those arms basically work.

This is a tool that is bent to fit the curve of the arm. I then removed a section of foam so it fits tight into the other piece.

Here are both pieces fitted together.

I drilled a 1/4 inch hole through all the foam when it was positioned together. This photo also shows some of the shaping I did to make the foam look more arm-like. I’m not too concerned with realism, as I will be covering these arm with fabric and possible adding stuffing to help shape. I used my hot-wire tools to achieve this shaping and regular sand paper.

This is joint with the section of 1/4 inch doweling inserted. I coiled wire around the dowel and wrapped it a bunch of times on each end so it would hold it in the hole. The arms can swing freely now and the peg stays in place.

Here’s the completed arm on approximately the angle it will be used. I like!

Drywall screw and elastic create the flexible joint. Forget about using a stapler/gun, it won’t work.

Sketchy Styles,

So, once the 4 arms are shaped and jointed, I’ll work on the shoulders and creating the axis that they will swing on.
-end_

As seen in MAKE: Special Edition Halloween
Click for bigger version:

Nicole

P.S
Here’s a never-been-seen before photo of my costume. Mid-Party being the D.J.