Aquabats costume

I love making my own costumes, and this year I decided to go as MC Bat Commander, fearless leader of The Aquabats. I binge-watched all three seasons of The Aquabats Super Show while I made the costume from scratch without a formal pattern. The t-shirt blank is new — everything else was created from materials in my crafty stash.

Piece one: The iconic belt! I constructed this of t-shirt jersey, black cotton canvas, and silver fabric. Everything is backed by stiff interfacing. The Lil’ Bat symbol for the belt and A symbol for the shirt were edited in Illustrator then converted to SVG files. Ran those through the Cricut to cut the iron on vinyl. These are made from two layers of vinyl.

The helmet is black craft foam, which I attached silver fabric to before sewing the pieces together. The mask is also black craft foam, and I used t-shirt hem for the strap because I am out of that size elastic.

Pro-tip: If your neighborhood Halloween store is out of black teeth wax, you can use non-toxic eyeliner on a dry tooth then seal with a bit of Vaseline. Lasted much longer than I expected. The black eye-liner is also needed for the mustache.

Off to save the world, you know! Together we’ll fight evil! So unbelievable!