Galactus walks the Earth (specifically, AgileTek's offices)

Galactus v2. Improvements over Galactus v1 include:

• Chest armor
• Burgundy color scheme
• Kilt armor
• Longer gloves, now with Galactus cuffs

Galactus lives!

Galactus is dyeing

Yeah, I'd previous claimed I'd be able to use just about any palette of Galactus colors and I'd be OK, but the truth is I'm pretty picky about my Galactus colors. So I took digital photos of my possible materials and color options and extracted a patch of each.



Then I found an head-on, full-body portrait of Galactus and used Photoshop to break it into color sections, with one layer for each color of each section.



By making only certain layers visible I was able to play around with my fabric color options until I hit on the right combination.



My final choice, the red-helmeted one above, required me to dye only one of my materials: that tan, cotton sweater. It's just as well that I didn't need to dye any of the fleece because that really wasn't an option. Modern fleece made from artifical materials that reject custom dyes.

Here's a before-and-after shot.



(Note the shrinkage. Those are both size L shirts, but the one on the right has been machine-washed, dyed with deep violet Dylon Fabric Dye, machine-washed again then machine-dried.)

With properly-colored fabrics in hand, it was time to begin construction.

The fleecing of Galactus

The second-most F of the FAQs about my Galactus costume is, "Why fleece?"

(The first-most, of course, is "Who are you supposed to be?" Oh, how the classics of literature are neglected.)

While I was sure that fleece was to be my material, I was having trouble expressing the reasons why. Then the redhead, who knows me better than I know myself (and who knows art and color theory better than anyone else you know), explained my thoughts to me.

"You're trying to bring the comic page to life."

That's it. I like the look of the solid-color fleece because it looks like the effect of comics' traditional four-color printing process.

SO SPEAKS GALACTUS!

"You're going to be a huggable Galactus?"

"You're going to be a huggable Galactus?"
   - My blog buddy, The Monarch,
   upon hearing that I'd chosen cotton
   and fleece as the primary materials
   for my Galactus costume.

Stay tuned for more details as we anticipate...

What's Galactus made of?

Now, having determined that I'm going to create a Galactus costume and that I've got flexibility when it comes to color, I come to the question: What material should I use?

The answer is, I'm not sure. I need to do a little more thinking and research. Here are the options as I see them.

Option 1: Fabric over foam

That's the approach that Wizard Entertainment took with its Galactus costume, which has been seen at many a comic book convention.

 

Tom Brevoort blogged about wearing this costume to work in "The Day I Was Galactus".

Option 2: Poster board

Flimsy and prone to looking like this:

Option 3: Plastic

This seems to be the most popular choice among Galuctus costumers.

Option 4: Dyed foam

I couldn't find any examples of someone using foam for a Galactus costume, but I saw an entire family of foam-based costumes at Wizard World...



...and I think this is doable. I read that professional puppeteers use reticulated foam (A.K.A. Scott foam) to make their puppets because of its texture, durability and its ability to hold Rit dye. I'm afraid that it might be expensive, though. I found a 16X36 sheet of 1/2 inch reticulated foam for $29.95. If I were to use eight of those sheets I'd be spending $250 in foam alone.

Foamcraft USA is a company in Chicago that specializes in foam; reticulated and otherwise. I'll give them a call and see if they've got something to offer.

Option 5: Strategically purchased clothing

I might be able to purchase some costume items off-the shelf.

Target has the Merona® Quarter-Zip Sweater in a variety of colors. They've got the ribbed look of Galactus' undershirt.

blue	red	sand dollar

I'll bet I could dye "sand dollar" to a Galactus purple.

The most likely option: Mixed media

I'll probably use a combination of all of the above. Again, I need to investigate the options more fully.

Comparing the Galacti

There are so many options when putting together a Galactus costume. Just look at the work of six artists.

Jack Kirby	John Buscema	Alex Ross
Moebius	Keith Pollard	Mark Engblom

See the differences? Let's summarize.

Artist	Arms	Shirt	Helmet	Horns	Hands
Jack Kirby	Bare	Blue	Blue	Purple	Bare
John Buscema	Blue	Purple	Red	Red (?)	Purple gloves
Alex Ross	Bare	Purple	Red	Red	Red gloves
Moebius	Blue	Red	Red	Red	Red gloves
Keith Pollard	Blue	Purple	Purple and blue	Purple	Purple gloves
Mark Engblom	Blue	Red	Red	Red	Red gloves

The variety of options is good news for me. It means that I can shop for pieces and parts in a variety of colors, and that I can declare just about anything I put together as "authentic".