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Headless Man and Headless Woman Costumes

How to Make Headless Man and Headless Woman Costumes

This post, Headless Man and Headless Woman Costumes was originally published on October, 10, 2011 but has since been updated and improved.

homemade-Halloween-costume-428x1024

The older I get, the more I love being “scary” things for Halloween.  I decided to be a headless zombie this year.  Searching the web for ideas, I came across some pretty good costume ideas.  My inspiration for this project was mainly from author, connielim_2000 from instructables.com and from Make Magazine, an article about Nicole Magne’s headless Marie Antoinette costume.  I read both awesome articles and made tweaks of my own to fit with what I had to work with.

These are by far the coolest handmade costumes I have made to date. They were surprisingly very easy to make.  Here is how I made my headless man and headless woman costumes for my husband and me.

Instructions for Headless Man and Headless Woman Costumes

Materials

This list contains affiliate links for recommended products I use.

Torso:

  • Torso Dress Form ($5 each on Craigslist)
  • Child size backpack (check value and discount stores)
  • Duct tape

Clothing:

  • Thrift store clothing or old curtains or sheets
  • Gloves (try the dollar store first!)
  • Needle and thread (optional)
  • Stuffing for arms and gloves (newspaper, old towels, rags, old clothes, or poly-fil)

Gory effects:

  • Deep red acrylic paint
  • Plastic bugs from the 99 Cent Only Store
  • Glue
  • Damp paper towel (for neck guts)
  • Decoupage medium

Optional:

  • Costume jewelry

Making the Torso

Purchase your materials. Finding the torso dress forms on Craigslist saved a lot of time and money. I found a great contact in Santa Ana, California called The Competitive Store.  Call them directly and ask for Jenny for the clearance items. They have awesome service too.  I also got the back packs on sale a few weeks after school started for $5 each at Big Lots.

 

Insert the dress form into the back pack with the straps and the chest facing the same way.  The child size back pack is the perfect fit for these retail dress forms.  Tightly bind the form to the back pack with duct tape. I tried it on first to make sure the height was ok. I ended up stuffing the bottom of the back pack with an old hand towel to raise it a bit. Make sure you try it on first before you tape it to get the right height.

Making the Guts

I used half of a paper towel, dampened it, and arranged it on top of the neck of the dress form to look like guts.  I saturated it with decoupage medium and coated it two times.  Make sure you allow it to dry in between coats. Paint it with a deep red acrylic paint.

I bought a package of spiders and bugs from the 99 Cent Store and glued them to the neck and shoulders.

Dressing the Headless Zombie

I spent less than $5 at the thrift store as well as dug up some old clothes and tea stained them to give them an antiquated look.  I also embellished the costume with Halloween gauze from the 99 Cent Only Store and also found some of my past Halloween costumes in the garage to use as well. For example, I used a Grim Reaper cape for the headless man.

For the woman, I used two thrift store blouses and two long skirts. Both blouses were on the form, one skirt went over my arms, shoulders, and back pack, and one skirt I wore normally.

If you go with the blouse and shirt (as opposed to a long dress), you have to cut a slit up the front of the shirt, so the back of the costume will look right.

For the man, I used an old men’s dress shirt and a Grim Reaper cloak.  With the costume on him, I cut the hole in the cloak for my husband’s head.

Dress your form and lightly stuff the arms and gloves.  I used left over polyester fiber fill from an old pillow project and stitched the gloves to the end of the sleeve. I also stitched the fingers to the shirt and used a deep red acrylic paint to splatter all over the hands.

During the process it helped that my husband and I tried them on several times to get the right height, fit, etc.

Here are some after pictures of my headless man and headless woman costumes.

homemade-Halloween-costume-1-525x1024

 

My hubby was on crutches (not part of the costume).

These were our costumes in the trunk on the way to a Halloween party.  Just thought this one was funny…

Other Halloween DIY Ideas

Check out some of my other favorite DIY Halloween Projects:

  • How to Make a Glittered Candy Corn Mason Jar Vase
  • How to Decoupage a Fabric Pumpkin
  • Spooky Halloween Apothecary Display
  • How to Make a Metallic Spider Pumpkin
  • How to Make an Eerie Halloween Wreath
  • Glam Up Halloween Skulls with Glitter and Rhinestones
  • Easy 15 Minute “BOO” Halloween Pumpkin Craft

DIY Headless Man and Headless Woman Halloween Costumes

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34 Comments

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Comments

  1. Jolene says

    October 10, 2011 at 8:45 am

    This are wonderful and scary too !!!!! You are so creative !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply
    • dwulf says

      October 10, 2011 at 9:24 am

      Thank you! It was so much fun making them. Now…what will I be next year??? LOL…

      Reply
  2. Tara Thompson Klosterman says

    October 10, 2011 at 12:13 pm

    You are amazing Dinah !!! love your blog <3

    Reply
    • dwulf says

      October 10, 2011 at 12:31 pm

      Thank you, Tara!!!! And thanks for taking the time to comment 🙂 Pass it on!

      Reply
  3. Rasy Sor says

    October 10, 2011 at 6:03 pm

    This is one of the scariest costumes I’ve ever seen! Good lord…. The picture of you with your eyes open gave me goosebumps! My friend wants to know where she can order this costume?

    AMAZING JOB!

    Reply
    • dwulf says

      October 10, 2011 at 7:02 pm

      I wore it to a party last Saturday with full amkeup and all and scared about 49 of the 50 kids there. None of them would come near me and their parents had to introduce them to me to show them it was just a costume.

      Your friend is welcome to borrow it! If she wins a costume contest I get half though…just kidding! 😉

      Reply
  4. Kuks Barrera says

    October 11, 2011 at 6:15 pm

    Well done! I like the detail. Do you have a pic with your make-up and all? Congratulations Dinah!

    Reply
    • JJ says

      January 13, 2012 at 9:03 am

      This is the BEST tutorial I have found for this and it seems like the easiest too… thanks! Perfect for a birthday costume party I have coming up.

      Reply
      • dwulf says

        January 13, 2012 at 9:09 am

        Thank you soooo much! That means a lot to me! Pass it on!

        Reply
  5. dwulf says

    October 11, 2011 at 6:53 pm

    Thank you! I don’t have a picture (I know…bad)! I’m hoping to see one from someone else at the party.

    Reply
  6. dwulf says

    November 15, 2011 at 11:30 am

    Lady Gaga went headless when she performed on the XFactor last night! I;m crossing my fingers that she got “DIYInspired”… LOL!

    Reply
  7. Erin says

    July 28, 2012 at 3:28 pm

    These are fantastic! I’m in the process of getting ideas together for this upcoming Halloween and I came across your site! I already started looking for body forms, but cannot find any as cheap as you said you found yours for! Were your body forms full forms, or were they hollow in the back?

    Reply
    • dwulf says

      July 29, 2012 at 8:13 am

      Hi Erin! They were hollow in the back. I’d love to see them when your done! post a picture on Facebook if you want! 🙂 http://www.facebook.com/diyinspired

      Reply
  8. dwulf says

    August 2, 2012 at 1:18 pm

    Thank you so much! I loved making it and it was a hit everywhere I wore it!

    Reply
  9. Clarice says

    August 31, 2012 at 7:41 am

    Amazing!

    Reply
  10. Alfie Bowie says

    September 1, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    This is great. new fan

    Reply
  11. Desmond says

    September 1, 2012 at 8:43 pm

    Hello very nice web site!! This is a great costume thanks for sharing.
    . . . . .

    Reply
  12. Kassie says

    September 2, 2012 at 11:36 am

    I love this, thanks!!! So creepy!

    Reply
  13. Spiris says

    October 22, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    Hi, I love this costume and your tutorial is really useful. I talked about it in my blog. Here is the link if you want to have a look (I included a link to your blog:-)).
    http://bauledellefeste.blogspot.com/2012/10/costumi-di-halloween-fai-da-te-per_22.html

    Reply
    • dwulf says

      October 22, 2012 at 4:56 pm

      Thank you so much! I appreciate the link! 🙂

      Reply
  14. Jenny Rose says

    August 6, 2014 at 2:42 am

    That was really awesome, thanks for sharing it.

    Reply
    • Dinah Wulf says

      August 7, 2014 at 7:05 am

      Thank you Jenny! I need to make a newer version of it.

      Reply
  15. Linda says

    August 17, 2014 at 3:04 pm

    This is really awesome – was intending to do headless for my grandson this year – different version where the eyes were hidden – but this will be so much easier, as he will be able to see where he is going…also not using a form, but a stuffed pillowcase with turtleneck shirt and cloak.

    Reply
  16. MH says

    October 31, 2017 at 1:46 pm

    Your tutorial helped me win 1st place. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Dinah Wulf says

      November 1, 2017 at 8:08 am

      Oh my gosh that is AWESOME! Thank you for letting me know and congrats!

      Reply

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