Angry birds costume pattern

Just in time for Halloween- An Angry Bird costume making tutorial!

I have had a few requests for a tutorial and pattern for the angry birds costumes I made for my friends at the start of the year. I am going to attempt to put the process down for making the red, black or blue bird (basically, the round shaped birds) in as much detail as I can remember. If you've chosen one of the others, the patterns can be adapted for whatever shape you like.

Here are some pics of the finished birds for reference:

I have included some pics in the tute, but since I didn't photograph each step as I went, I've instead tried to describe each step carefully.

*disclaimer* I am not a professional- this tutorial outlines my novice steps to get there.

Please read through all the instructions before starting. Hope it helps!

Materials:

• Butchers paper/newspaper, pencil and string.
• polyester, or similar stretchy fabric (but not jersey- too stretchy) in desired colour. Metres/Yards will depend on size of wearer. You'll need enough for the front and back of the costume
• small amount of white fabric for belly (grey for black bird) choose something snuggly
• muslin or light white fabric for lining, for front piece of costume only.
• felt in white, black and yellow (add blue/purple for black angy bird)
• vlisofix/heat and bond or spray glue if you're game (for attaching the face)
• light poly fill (toy stuffing). LOTS (1-2 bags per costume)
• sewing machine and thread
• 8 hours of your time. :) (if you're a novice! ha)

Step one: measure your Angry Bird

Take a measurement of your angry bird from the top of the head to just below the bottom, or desired length of costume. Add 6-8 inches for room above the head. This measurement is the diameter of the circle shape for your bird pattern.

Step two: draw your pattern outline

Take a large piece of butchers paper or tape pieces of newspaper together.It will need to be big enough to draw a circle with the diameter you just worked out in step 1.

To draw the circle pattern as accurately as we can (on a big scale) we are going to make a compass using a long piece of string and a pencil.

Tie your string or piece of ribbon to the pencil, close to the lead. 

Take your measurement (diameter) and halve it (radius). Cut your piece of string to the length of the radius.

You are ready to draw your circle!

Draw a dot somewhere in the middle of your butchers paper. Place the loose end of the string over the dot and ask a friend to place their finger over it and hold it down carefully.

Take the pencil and stretch the string so it is taut. Put pencil to paper and carefully draw a circle.

This is your basic shape, from here we will modify it to suit the characters.

Step 3: sketch some details onto your pattern

Shape the head:

To give the head some shape, sketch some hair and taper the top part of the circle so it doesn't look completely round on top. Use this picture of the Angry Birds team to help you get some ideas:

Provide arm and face holes:
Next we need to draw some holes for the wearer's face and arms. Have a look at this picture to see how these holes work in action:

Use a cereal bowl to sketch a hole for the costume wearer's face and draw it on your pattern towards the top of the costume.

Draw two long vertical rectangles for the arm holes. The arms will be more at the angry bird's hip level as they come out in front. To check, hold the pattern up to the wearer and line up suitable face and arm holes. Draw in.

Draw tummy panel:

Sketch in the tummy panel using a curved line.

Draw the face:

Sketch the face onto the pattern. This will help you work out the scale. Draw eyes, a beak and angry looking eyebrows. If you're making the black bird, you'll need a piece on the head for the yellow 'spark.'

Trace the face pieces onto a separate piece of paper to use as a pattern. If you would like your face pieces to have a black outline (like the cartoon drawings of the Angry Birds), cut out the eye and beak pieces and draw new pattern pieces a little bigger for the black outline. Here's a pic of the finished face pieces to give you an idea.

Your pattern is now ready to use!

Step 4: Cut face pieces from felt

Pin your face pattern pieces to your chosen felt colours. Cut out carefully. If you've chosen to include the black outline, you can cut a hole in the eye pieces to create 'eyeballs' when you place the eye piece over the black outline piece. Fuse these pieces together with fusible webb for ease of application to the costume front later.

Repeat for the beak pieces.

Step 5: pin pattern pieces to costume fabric

To give you an idea of how the costume works, it's basically a pillow form on the front with a piece of fabric that goes over the back. Keep this in mind when you cut out your fabric.This is how I did it to save time and energy, but you can use another method that suits you:

Cut your piece of polyester fabric into two pieces for the front and back of costume

Lay your piece of muslin/cotton (for the lining) on the floor, wrong side up (though it doesn't matter as no one will see it)

Lay your front piece of polyester on top, right side up (bear with me)

Lay your back piece on top, right side down.

Place your pattern on top, right side up. Pin through all three layers of fabric all around the pattern. Cut out.

Unpin the pattern and three layers, setting aside the back piece of the costume.

Mark the arm and face holes, the tummy panel and the location of the face pieces onto your front and lining pieces using chalk or your prefered method.

Cut the tummy panel from your pattern (or trace onto new butcher's paper) and pin to your white snuggly belly fabric (or grey if you're making the black bird). Cut out. 

Step 6: sew tummy and face to front piece

Sew the tummy panel onto the front of the costume. To do this, I folded the fabric of the curved edges under 1/2 an inch and topstitched around the whole thing, enclosing the raw edges of the front piece where they lined up with the belly at the same time. This involved guesswork so I'm sure you can figure this part out/do it neater than I did!

Using fusible webb, iron your felt face pieces onto the front of the costume. Use the pictures above to work out the positioning. Iron on the felt for hair piece if necessary (for the bomb's spark)

Here's the face and stomach parts on my costume. (ignore the face and arm holes, we'll do that next).

Step 7: Create holes for arms and face and stitch front piece to lining:

We are going to join the front piece to lining by stitching the face and arm holes together first- right sides out (it will make sense in a bit.)

Here's how I did it:
Take your front piece and find the circle you have drawn for the face. Pierce a hole in the centre of the circle and cut slits from the centre, like you're cutting a pie. Stop each slit a little before the edge of the circle.
Repeat with the lining piece. (NB: to make this a little easier, I fused a piece of interfacing to the circles before cutting the slits. It made it stiffer and easier to work with).

Turn slits on the both pieces to the inside of the costume and press. Line up the circles and pin together around the circle, catching all raw edges in between the layers as neatly as possible.
Top stitch close to the edge, enclosing the 'flaps' you have cut. I Hope that isn't too confusing - I can't explain it any other way and there wasn't anything online for this method that I could find.

Repeat this process with the rectangle arm holes but make the slits like triangles and trapezoids (google it) and stitch together in the same way.

If you'd like to try an alternative method for making the holes, one of my readers Gloria emailed this suggestion to me:

" I put the face (red fabric) and lining (white fabric) tog; sewing on the right side of face - I place a piece of white fabric, and a piece of fusible interfacing (sticky side up).  Then, I sewed the lines of the holes, cut inside fabric, graded seams, and then turned the facings under; ironed the sticky side down, then used stitch whitchery (http://sewing.about.com/od/fusibles/ss/fusibleoptions.htm) to stick down the facing."

Here's a pic of Gloria's method:

I hope one of these methods works for you. Thanks for your suggestion Gloria!

After stitching the holes, stitch the front piece and lining together around the perimeter of the costume (still right sides out). Make sure you leave a gap for stuffing at the bottom. Make sure you can get your arm through the hole as you'll need to get the stuffing into the top of the costume easily. NB: don't worry that you can see this stitching, these stitches will be hidden when you sew the front and back pieces together in a minute.

Step 8: Stitch front piece and back piece together:

Sew the front piece to the back piece right sides together all around the perimeter, making sure you leave a big enough gap at the bottom between the front piece and the back piece to put it on easily.

Make sure your seam allowance is wider than the one you used for sewing the front piece and lining together so you can hide these stiches in the seam.
Turn your costume right side out and press the seam nicely.
Turn under raw edge of back piece at the bottom of the costume and top stitch to make it look neat. 


Step 9: Fill your costume
 
Stuff your front piece with polyfill, using small pieces at a time to avoid lumps. Be careful not to overfill it as it will be very heavy and hot! Slip stitch the gap closed.
 
Step 10: put on your costume and crash into pigs, walls and ice.
 
 

 
Yay!

Gloria sent through a lovely pic of her two Angry Birds. Here they are for you to enjoy:

I hope these instructions have been helpful for you. Please send me some pictures if you make costumes using these instructions as I'd love to see them.

Happy Halloween!

xx

Sharing the love of angry birds costume making....

This morning I received an email that truly made my day. It was from a lovely lady from Wisconsin who discovered my posts on Angry Birds costume making and with the help of her mum, created two costumes for her little boys.

I thought I'd share the email and the picture of her cute little boys as it made me smile:

"I looked all over the internet for angry bird costume patterns with no luck and then I ran across your website, elegantpaws. Your site helped my mom and I figure out how to make my 2 children costumes (well, roughly, I had no idea what I was doing and she has some sewing experinece). The end result is not as nice as yours but my boys just loved them and wear them all the time, they also have many envious friends :) With any luck they'll hold up until next October and they can wear them for Halloween.
Again, thanks for posting on your site, it helped us a lot in trying to create these costumes. Attached is a picture. I thought you'd get a kick out of seeing our version of your costumes."


Jessica. 

Don't they look fantastic? I am so impressed and thrilled that I can help perpetuate the Angry Birds obsession that is gripping the world!

Feel free to add links to your Angry Birds creations in the comment section below or send me an email with your pictures and I'll add it to this post.

xx

Angry Birds are go! Part 4- The finale

In our final instalment of the adventures in Angry Bird costume making (or 'Avian Fury' as we have dubbed it) we come to the end of what has been a really fun and sometimes hilarious sewing project.

If you'd like to skip to the part where you learn how to make your own costume, I've written a tutorial which can be found here. 

Anyway, those darling cross eyed birds really get into your heart, and have even been found flapping around in my dreams. Last night I woke up with a fright because I thought my curtains were the big black Angry Bird looming over the bed. Scary!

We left off last time after I had finished the red bird costume and given it to the boys to test out. We went to a nearby park so the boys could run around and see just how hot it is to wear a pillow in the middle of the day.

Here's a little montage of those pics, taken as usual by Mr Elegantpaws.

After much fun and laughing at Seb running around like a crazy person, I went away and bought the rest of the fabric, 5 bags of polyfill, some felt and some vliesofix to attach the face pieces to the body.

I got to work on the yellow bird and black bird, cutting fabric, stitching on the bellies, making the front pillow form piece and the back piece. Our cats Claude and Madeleine decided to chip in by sitting on the pattern pieces as I tried to position them correctly, or helpfully rolling around on the fabric covering it in fur.

I got there in the end, with only a few mistakes and one near disaster which I managed to recover from.

Here are some photos to give you an idea of the process.

the patterns

Madeleine enjoying the yellow bird

pinning the lining to the main fabric

cutting out the fabric using a rotary wheel

Madeleine being cute

nom nom nom I love rope

We all decided it would be good for the boys to come over for a little 'working bee' to help finish off the costumes. This way they could get creative and  contribute to the end result making wearing them all the more special.

To prepare for the working bee, I traced all the face pieces onto the Vliesofix so all they needed to do was cut them out, fuse them onto felt, cut them out again and fuse the face pieces onto the body of the costume.

Here are some pics of Josh and Seb working it and the cats continuing to enjoy the costumes. They love fabric!

Josh gets cozy with the iron

attaching the face

Seb irons on his face while the other birds chill out

Madeleine and the yellow bird face off

Claude emerges from the red bird's arm...

The final stages involved stuffing the remaining birds (then pulling some of the stuffing out as it was too tightly packed and VERY heavy) and stiching up the gap in the seams. Done!

Here are some photos of me having fun in my creations. I am really happy with how they turned out.

D day: Playground Weekender Costume Night

All reports from the festival suggest a fun time was had by all. The boys managed to get me a few snaps and I was happy to hear the reaction from other festival goers was enthusiastic! The costumes did turn out to be really hot (given that it was 30 degrees all weekend i'm not surprised!) but they held up well and the boys enjoyed their time as crazy, squawking crossed eyed Angry Birds.Win!

Here are some pics from the festival:

I like the one where they're kicking back with Fred Flintstone. 

So, boys and girls, we have come to the end of our adventures in Angry Bird costume making. It was fun seeing it all come together slowly and I definitely learned a thing or two about sewing. 

I hope you enjoyed the story and feel inspired to make your own one day!

Let me know what you think of the end results!!

Angry birds are go! Part 3

The adventures in Angry Birds costume making continues with some exciting developments. I completed one bird successfully (without the usual accompaniment of swearing/tantrums when I am trying something new) and had fun trying on the costume and dancing around like a lunatic.

The boys were happy with the results, so this week i'll be madly sewing the other two before they all come over on Sunday to help with the finishing touches.

Now I don't want to give it all away before the festival, but I will include a few pics of the sewing process captured by Karl as it came together last week.

Carefully sewing....

concentrating....

'Argh! I should have sewed this part earlier!'

Next episode... The final results!

Angry birds are go! Part 2

In 'Angry Birds are go! Part 1', we established the premise for making 3 padded costumes for my friends Josh, Jimmy and Seb. Now we begin the process of making it a reality.

We had our first costume meeting over a couple of drinks and discussed some important factors: Will they be able to sit down? How hot will the costumes be to wear? Will they be able to go to the bathroom easily? Who can we convince to be the pig so we can tackle them all night?
After taking these things into consideration, I made some measurements, discussed fabric and entertained Seb's idea of also making a 'cool vest' which houses two ice packs and one plastic hip flask for easy access to booze. Of course.

Here are some photos of the process, taken by my clever husband Karl who was along for funsies.

Josh- Black bird

Jimmy- red bird

lol

Seb- yellow bird

Seb's 'cool vest' sketch

The next step was for me to go away and draft the patterns for each bird......

Being a terrible drawer and a total novice at pattern making for clothes/costumes, I asked my work colleague Sara for some suggestions. Sara, is conveniently both an Angry Birds addict (she's finished all the levels, bought several upgrades etc) AND someone highly skilled in pattern and costume making (where do I find these people?!). She not only explained how to make the costumes, she helped me tape up giant pieces of butcher's paper together and drew ALL the patterns for me!!! What a legend!!! She did us the biggest favour and saved me a whole world of pain. Woo hoo!

With the red bird pattern tucked under one arm, I visited a fabric shop in Marrickville, Sydney, where I managed to purchase some red polyester for $3 per metre. Bargain. The original costumes I'm basing ours on were made from polar fleece, which is way too hot for February in Australia. 

So now I'm ready to check the patterns against the boys to mark spots for arm and leg holes, then I can get started!

Angry Birds are go! Part 1

'Playground Weekender' is a dance music festival which takes place every year in Wiseman's Ferry, NSW. They have a special tradition whereby everyone must dress up in costume for one of the nights, with fabulous and entertaining results. Here are some pics of friends from previous events.

Recently there was a discussion on facebook between friends who were trying to work out what they wanted to do for the costume night. Madeleine (green ghost above) came up the the brilliant idea of the boys going as Angry Birds. I recently had a short addiction to the game so I was super enthusiastic about this and promtly offered my services (with absolutely NO IDEA how to make a costume at all). With some quick fingers and google assistance (where would we be without it?) I found the following entry on the clock blog of some impressive looking handmade Angry Bird costumes:

Jordan from The Clock Blog kindly emailed me some instructions (now on his blog) on how to make these wonderful and hilarious costumes which I forwarded on to the interested party.
I am now in the 'discussion, measuring and meeting phase' with Josh, Seb and Jimmy to try and work out how we are going to do this. I thought it might be fun to track our progress and the final results.

Let the Angry Birds costume making challenge begin!