It’s everyone’s favourite time of year… Our annual Halloween costume reveal! And, if you didn’t guess from the title and the photo, this year we went with family Minecraft Halloween costumes! As always, I like to DIY some (or all) parts of our costumes, and this year was no exception. Thinking of doing your own DIY Minecraft costumes? Read on to see how we made ours!
When I say that our Halloween costumes are a big deal around here, I mean it. Normally, we decide on our theme around the start of summer – but this year we were late to the decision.
Honestly, it’s because the kids are getting older and didn’t want to decide on something together. It wasn’t until the end of August/early September when they finally came to a consensus.
Which left me about a month to make these costumes. Our dining room/living room has been my crafting zone for a while – and I’m happy that these are done and out of the way, ha.
I’ll get into more details on how I made the costumes a bit lower, but for now, let’s take a look at how they turned out!
Minecraft Halloween Costumes
Our oldest (Zachary) is 8 and obsessed with Minecraft. Is it the same in your house? The 6 and 4 year-old also watch some Minecraft videos, but Zachary is the only one who will play the game. (Only in creator mode on the Nintendo Switch).
He was very particular about his costume, and the other two picked their own as well. The rest of us (aka me, the Husband and the dog)’s costumes were chosen based on what was easier and more recognizable.
If you’re in the Minecraft phase, you might know all these characters. If not, scroll down lower to see the reference images I used.
First up, our little chicken. Essentially, a white and light gray body with yellow legs. I cut the hole for him to see at the bottom of the chicken’s beak.
Élise very specifically wanted a golden axolotl. Gold is her favourite colour, but for some reason my gold paint was dried out AND my spray paint didn’t work. I didn’t want to spend any money buying new paint for the costumes, and she settled on a non-shiny gold tone for the body.
Zachary wanted the main character (I think his name is Steve) in Netherite armour. There might also be something else fancy with the makeup of the costume, but I’m not the expert, ha.
In the game, there are two snow golems. One has a normal snowman head, and one has a jack-o-lantern/pumpkin head. I thought the pumpkin would be better for Halloween :)
I was surprised no one in my family wanted to be a creeper! To me, the green character is the most famous one – everyone always thinks of the yellow pixelated blocks when they think of Minecraft, right? Honestly, I just wanted to reuse the same green leotard I wore last year (and originally bought a few years ago).
Tootsie is our TNT block! Another super popular Minecraft related item. I’ve seen TNT piñatas and everything. Taking up just one cube, it was also the most suited for a dog. (She could also have been a block of dirt I guess.)
How to Make DIY Minecraft Costumes
Wondering how we made our costumes? It’s relatively easy – all you need are cardboard boxes of various sizes, scissors/knives, masking tape, a ruler/pencil, and paint.
First, we gathered all our clean cardboard boxes. We get Chef’s Plate delivered weekly… so that’s a guaranteed box a week (plus more that I had saved up or were ready for recycling).
For Tootsie’s costume, I just cut a arch in the front and back and have it sitting on her. It was our only real cube box, so I wanted to use it for the TNT. (Our other boxes are slightly rectangular, but I wasn’t that picky).
With most of the boxes, I used a serrated knife to cut the flaps off, cut head holes and arm holes. I didn’t have masking tape at first and used another tape I had, but the paint didn’t stick to it well. The paint also had trouble sticking to the regular clear packing tape that comes with most boxes, so I found it was easiest to just line it with masking tape.
I had the kids help paint all the shells. The axolotl shape is much narrower than the rest, so that box required a bit of reshaping.
One thing I learned halfway through was to only cut the eyes after you have the boxes painted and lined up. I cut my eye holes early on, then had to finagle the painted pattern to try and match where the holes were. (Instead of cutting the eyes after where it makes sense for the design).
Once you have your boxes painted, you need to draw grid lines so that you can paint the pixels. Most of the characters are 8×8 grids, but some like the pumpkin head and the TNT were 16×16.
See how I traced and cut the eyeball holes based on my grid lines? Much better that way!
Once the grids are drawn, I took a small artist brush and painted different colours all over. I didn’t erase my pencil lines after, but that’s certainly something you can do.
All in all, it most likely took me hours of work. Like 20+ I’d estimate? Almost every night I’d trace grid lines, tape cardboard boxes, paint one colour on one character, then another, etc. I tried to batch my work so that I’d paint all the black one day, all the gray another, etc.
And yes, like I mentioned, my dining room and living room/office area has been filled with boxes for a while.
Minecraft Costume Details
Let me share my reference images and a bit of the details I added.
For the chicken, there is both an adult and a baby version. To the plain cardboard box I added wing flaps, and I painted the beak with the same colours as it should be. There’s a red tongue thing that I didn’t build out (that’s where Félix needs to see!) but I did put some paint there.
Oh, the axolotl. Again, a weird shape (like a flat/rectangle instead of a cube), plus with the addition of ear/hair(?) little legs and a tail. Élise was also my pickiest child, and I’d estimate that there are probably six coats of paint on this thing. Instead of doing two eyes and a mouth, I cut a longer hole for her to see from.
Because this box is so narrow, it’s harder to get on and off. Which, if you saw the photos of her wearing it, there is a big gap in the front. I should have put the gap in the back, but I told her we might make a new flap and tape it on for Halloween night.
To help me with my painting, Zachary had to go to his Minecraft house/store and get his guy to wear the suit. Then I snapped a photo of the Switch with my phone, and used that as my reference (as opposed to the one image I found while looking online).
For his suit, he told me that the Nethorite had a purple tinge. I actually painted it all in black and shades of gray, then did a clear coat of polycrylic mixed with purple paint.
The snow golem was probably the easiest costume. Honestly, the only tricky thing with this one was finding boxes big enough to fit around the Husband! (Oh, I opened the flaps on the bottom box to make it longer, but for some reason it’s reflecting the light darker so it looks like I painted more gray around the bottom half.
For the creeper, I found both a tall one and a short one. Remember when I mentioned that I cut the eye holes before drawing my grid lines? Yeah, I had to make it work and it’s kind of wonky here. Also, the kids said that they didn’t want me to paint the toes on the creeper, so maybe they don’t have the black parts in the game?
The TNT was the first costume I completed from start to finish. Again, it was the easiest shape (no add-ons needed) – but the 16×16 grid did require more painting and detail work.
Family Minecraft Halloween
Here are the costumes without us wearing them. They could certainly be used as decor or props for a Minecraft-themed party.
Other than a lot of time, these costumes cost less than five dollars to make. I had all the boxes ahead of time (and/or asked people for boxes that I was missing) and I had plenty of wall and craft paints that I didn’t need to buy any. The only purchase I made for this year’s family Minecraft Halloween costumes was a roll of masking tape. And only because I didn’t have any painter’s tape (which would have worked) and the packing tape was not holding paint well.
Logistically speaking, wearing cardboard boxes with little eye holes to see is tricky. In fact, it was hard to wrangle Tootsie for our photos and she ran off before we even noticed. (She doesn’t hate being in costume, but she doesn’t love it either).
On Halloween night, I anticipate that the kids will need help walking around or to get candy into their bags. One good thing is that they can wear warm clothing underneath. Last year we had to trick-or-treat in an early snowstorm!
Can you spot Élise in the snow golem costume in the photo above? It was super windy when we were taking these photos, and the boxes kept flying everywhere. I had to reassemble them a few times, before she came over to help me with the trickiest one.
I hope you enjoyed seeing and reading about our family Minecraft Halloween costumes! So far, the kids still love dressing up as a group, so cross your fingers they feel the same way next year. There were a few ideas on the “maybe” list, but I’d love to hear your suggestions :)
For now, our costumes are in the basement (where I throw all the things I don’t want to see, ha). The kids like to wear them and play – but I told them if they ruined the costumes before I took photos, I’d be upset.
Now, if they ruin them, they’ll be the ones that are upset because I don’t want to make them again :p
Want more group or family costume ideas?
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