How to Make Fruit Costumes in 3D

Well folks, we have some good news and some bad news.

The Bad News

We hate to admit this, but the Fruit Troupe in our kids video – Apple, Orange, Grape, Peach, Lime, and Banana – is not a group of real-life giant fruits.  We did not cast walking, talking plant actors.  They are not products of genetic engineering or some other mad scientist plot to take over the world.  (We only wish we were that smart.)

Mere humans dressed in large, colorful costumes – that’s all.  Sad, we know, but we figure we’d come clean with the truth.  So now that we’ve burst that bubble, we humbly proceed to…

The Good News

We’re giving you a sneak peak into exactly how we made these cool fruit costumes.  More specifically, how we turned what would otherwise be cheap, flat-looking pajamas into full 3D fruit mascot figures.

Transforming your typical homemade fruit costume to 3D takes takes some planning, elbow grease, and the right materials.  Standard fabric filler won’t work.  Stuffing it full of pillows or other linens won’t work, either (we tried this).  To give fruit costumes that desired squishy 3D quality, it’s important to first find a stiff material and then form it into a shape that holds its own.

Finding the Right Material

The special materials we need won’t be found at Wal-Mart.  Not this time.  We need to shop at a place far more scary, where the adventures are campfire-worthy.  That place is called…

Jo-Ann Fabrics.

Inside the store, there wasn’t a grown man in sight.  As I sneaked my way to the back aisle, trying not to draw attention to my male presence,  I noticed a sign that read:

Half-off sale on all upholstery foam

Upholstery foam is the stuff used to make padded cushions on lounge seats and couches. As you probably know from sitting in chairs, it holds shape pretty well until you put some pressure (as in, sit down) on it. Perfect for human-sized fruit costumes. Giant 8’x4’ pieces. 2 inches thick. SOLD!

After purchasing six giant sheets of this bright green foam, which were each as big as a twin-sized bed, I spent the next half-hour stuffing them into my compact car.

I had dozens of women staring at me during the whole fiasco. That much lady attention would’ve been something to brag about – if they weren’t all twice my age.

The Shape

Upholstery foam doesn’t come in spherical ball shapes, so we have to perform some origami magic and create a sphere from a bunch of flat pieces.

Look at how a real-life orange is sliced.  It can easily be split into 6 or 8 wedges, each with equal size and shape.  Notice that the wedges are widest at the center and taper down at the ends.  Fit them back together, and you have a spherical ball.

We can use the same idea when planning use of the foam to make our giant fruit.  Measure several flat pieces of the same size and shape, wider at the center and tapered at the ends.  When these pieces are glued together, they will form a hexa-, octa-, or whateva- gonal shape you choose.

Cutting

Once the pattern is transferred over to a sheet of foam, it can be cut with a pair of scissors, or more preferably, a manly power tool like a 600 Watt electric-powered jig saw.  Ho ho ho.

While it would be easier to make straight cuts on the foam, it’s important to cut each of the six pieces with a 30 degree bevel.  Doing this allows us to fit the wedges into the shape (in our case, a hexagon) needed to create the sphere illusion on camera.

Putting It All Together

Finally, we attach the pieces together using a hot glue gun.

This is actually more difficult than what may seem at first.  If we just slap glue on the pieces and bend them into a curve to bring them together, they quickly fly apart because flat pieces of foam like to stay flat.

After a ton of trial and error, I found a process that works.

Take two wedges and glue their centers together.  Clamp this weld with your fingers for at least 2 minutes (try not to get burned like I did).  This should form a strong enough bond to work on the next section of the seam.  Work 2 minutes at a time, gluing and holding, until you reach one edge of the seam (Gluing Order 1-3 on the figure to the left).  Then glue center-to-edge on the other side of the seam (Gluing Order 4-5).

After doing this process three times, you should have three 2-wedge segments.  Attach the three segments together to complete the hexagon.  Cut holes for arms, and that’s it!  You now have a giant fruit!

Was this article helpful?  Then leave some comment love below!  And stay tuned to FreshFruitPie.com for more behind-the-scenes articles coming shortly.

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