So far, 2014 has been a very bad year for childhood heroes.
We have lost such wonderful human beings as Rik Mayall, Roger Lloyd-Pack Robin Williams and Richard Attenborough. Whether you were a fan or not, these folks brought joy to people all over the world which is something worth recognizing.
It truly is a shame to have lost such fine comedians, actors and humanitarians. But thankfully they will live on in our favorite movies and shows, never to be forgotten.
I recently rewatched every episode of the British ‘80s classic, Bottom to remember Rik Mayall at his best; Jumanji, Hook and The Fisher King in tribute to the late and great Robin Williams.
My most recent cinematic trip down memory lane was with one of my favourite movies of all time, Jurassic Park. In remembrance of the talented Mr. Attenborough, here are my top dinosaur cosplays.
Jurassic Park forever!
Okay, so he’s not a dinosaur, but Dennis Nedry seems to be a popular cosplay.
And why not?
He’s a great character, even if he does have a much smaller percentage of screen time than some of the other characters, he is still one of the most memorable. He is quite similar to Newman, in his annoying, inconsiderate selfishness but with the small difference of a Hawaiian shirt and Jurassic Park raincoat in place of a postal service uniform.
All of this is a fairly easy costume to make out of things you would be able to buy in a lot of clothing stores and modify yourself. You could even make your own Jurassic Park pass if you can get your hands on a standard office laminator. The best variations I’ve seen of Nedry have been costumes that have captured him mid dilophosaurus attack, with his raincoat and sticky dino-goo on his face.
Extra points for effort there guys.
In a search for the fossilized sap stone, amber online recently I stumbled across an entire forum about collecting Jurassic Park props. I was amazed at how much of it is available to buy and the lengths that some people have gone to, to make their own.
Some of the best props were eggs, especially the partially hatched ones like in this costume here:
Again, the cloning team didn’t really get much screen time, but they are integral to the plot – without them there would be no Jurassic Park! So well worth paying homage to in cosplay form.
This again is a very simple costume, and would be easy to make providing you can get hold of a lab coat (which you can get from costume stores if not a real one) to customize. The egg itself is where the hard work would be, but probably wouldn’t take you very long which would give you more scope to add extra details, which would make or break the complete ensemble.
The whole blog is really worth a read to find out how to get hold of some of these props, or how to make your own perfect “East Dock” sign complete with spinning arrow.
Even though he’s probably overlooked as a relatively uninteresting character, I would love to see more attempts to recreate Mr. DNA. He’s instantly recognizable which makes him a good choice regardless of any other factors, but is also one of the last characters you might think of which usually scores extra points with the pretentious variety of cosplay nerd. Because his form has no real human shape it would be a real challenge, which means you’d have to get pretty creative to get the theme across.
This guy gave it a good shot and the end result really works.
With his over simplified explanation of genetic engineering and slightly condescending tone, he’s almost like the InGen equivalent of Microsoft’s Paperclip helper.:
The main human characters in Jurassic Park all seem to have family based roles and relationships with each other; with the two kids being grandchildren of John Hammond and Dr. Sattler’s constant references to Dr. Grant not getting along with kids (and, oh boy, guess who gets stuck with the kids?) would make him the father figure and her the mother. This dynamic makes it a great and obvious choice for a family cosplay. Dr. Malcom could even be played by the creepy uncle! It’s perfect.
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| Raptor-boy on the far tight there really makes this photo. |
Godzilla isn’t Jurassic Park related, obviously, but always a great dinosaur costume. I know that it’s debatable whether he was actually a dinosaur or actually just some kind of lizard, but whatever. This costume does however rely solely on props, otherwise it’s just a dinosaur.
Tiny buildings and other debris is was makes it Godzilla, and I’m surprised we didn’t see more of an uprising in this costume after the latest movie, which is a shame because all of the monsters featured in that movie looked incredible!
Godzilla was the classic chunky giant lizard, and the ‘muto’s were really something special.
My personal favorite and possibly the most iconic dinosaur of the Jurassic Park series is of course, the Velociraptor. Mostly due to it’s impressive appearance in the first one. I think most viewers were so overwhelmed with relief that all the remaining living characters had escaped the T Rex that they had forgotten how potentially dangerous the Raptors were (as explained by Sam Neill to a tubby young Jake Gyllenhaal.)
The Raptor’s breath on the window of that door (that they had learned to open!! OMFG!!) is still a frightening image that was so intense it’s suck with us and been referenced over and over again in other movies and media since.
Something that made this dinosaur especially great was that it was largely costume and animatronics, which made it feel ‘real.’ The development and creation of the raptor suit was a huge project, and was worth every ounce of time and effort.
Making your own raptor suit like this might be a little bit tough. Especially if you haven’t made anything similar before, and you don’t have a Hollywood movie budget or an enormous studio. But using this original as inspiration would be a good place to start, although you might find your costume looks a little more like this one which may not be as anatomically accurate, but still does the job.
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