My son, the baby Russell and Mason, the Mr. Frederickson met on Halloween through a family friends’ coworker. We had a blast doing a photo shoot with both of them. I wanted to know how he made his costume so I asked him and he made a description of How To make a Mr. Fredricksen costume and is awesome enough to share it on my site.
Here it is! Thank you Mason!! A tutorial on how to make the Russell costume is linked to below.
You can check out his blog here.
#1- Trace the shape of the box onto the 2″ insulation foam. The sides and bottom should be the same size as the box but draw the hair to go higher than the box by a few inches. Glue the foam to the box. Then cut another porto of the foam to be the chin and glue onto the already glued to the box foam. Then cut some eyebrows and glue them on as well. The don’t need to be 2″ thick.
#2-Cut out the ears and glue onto the box. Cut your foam sphere in about half for the nose. To make is not so perfectly round you may want to add celluclay and shape it to be more oval. Then sculpt out the face shape with your foam carving heat wire. Use an image to help you get it right. The prime the whole thing if you want.
#3-Add more painting detail in the wrinkles and hair shading. I didn’t sculpt anywhere but the front of the box so for the sides and back I just painted some hair detail.
#4- Using the heat wire cut through the foam and box where the eye pupils are so you can see out when wearing it. Also, keep touching up the paint to add highlights and shadows.
#5- The glasses I made out of cardboard and then black duct taped around them to get them to be a solid black. This also allowed them to be flexible and I just velcroed them to the head.
#6- It helps to print out an actual face from the internet and size it to the size of the box you are using. That way you can trace and get the details exactly right. a big head adds to the effect.
#7- I made a giant bow tie out of brown felt and attached it to my shirt a little lower than usual because the box sits lower on the body. I found the sports coat, shirt and pants at a thrift shop. It helps to hold balloons or even a walker like he had in the movie. I also made a button like he wears as well. The details really help. I would even walk around with the music from the movie playing off my iPhone. I added some foam inside the box so it sat on my shoulders just right. Be sure to walk bow legged and crotchety and have fun!
Mason and my son Denali met each other on Halloween and it was just an awesome day.
For tips on how to make a Russell costume from the Movie up Click here
I would like to know where you bought the Russell costume for your son?
Erika- I made it. I’m currently doing a tutorial on it. I gathered a lot of the odds and ends and things that went into his backpack from thrift stores. But here is the main post on how to do the badges, flag, wilderness explorer book, etc. I have a goal to get the posts up by end of August. It’s been a busy year! The next tutorial I’ll be doing is how to sew a scout sash because they are hard to find. I found the shirt and shorts at a thrift store as well as the shoes.
Anita
My name is David Lin and I am a student at New York University. Me and my friend (Kenny Pan) teamed up very recently to create a joint YouTube channel, because we love the concept of YouTube. For our first video, we hope to go absolutely viral. The video would involve gimbals, OSMO, GoPros, many cameras, and of course two characters from the movie Up, Russell and Carl – Mr. Fredrickson. We love your Carl mask, and we would be honored if we could borrow it.
Please let me know if you are interested.