Jurassic Carpark

My friend Tom, for reasons as yet unknown, is in search of a dinosaur costume. The quality, price and realism of the costume will, I imagine, depend on his requirements:

For celebrations in retail outlets, children's fetes, or sporting events:

(Available for hire from

mascotsuk.com for upwards of £95 for 3 days, or to buy from charlievegas.co.uk for the price of a low quality sofa)

For film production, natural history related events and scaring children:

Consider using this article to build an animatronic robot dinosaur.

(NB: The word 'simple' in the heading of this article is entirely inappropriate. It includes this sentence, for example: "as for the analog inputs they can accept switched motion sensors gyroscopes, potentiometers, etc").

I have no idea what the raw materials cost to do this, but I imagine hiring someone with the skills to build animatronic veloceraptor workings doesn't come cheap.

But, having aligned and attached all your potentiometers and that, imagine the fun! Here's some inspiration

For friendly parties, office japes and low quality fringe theatre:

(a snip at £2.49 from websites like partydomain.co.uk or, I imagine, all good party shops)

You'd have to sew yourself a dinosaur costume or alternatively, make like the Microsoft advert and just wear normal clothes as in, "hey man, you're, like, a dinosaur, man)

Alternatively, "Barb's Baton Bargains and Halloween" on the US Ebay site offers a full latex dinosaur head licensed from the Jurassic Park franchise for around $20 plus $25 P&P. On this note, this happy fella has scored himself an original Dilophosaurus mask from the film. You could ask his advice?

Best mask I saw:

... on an ebay site. But it's been snapped up. And I fear it's for a fantasy geekoid zombie dino thing anyways.

On a separate note, I observe that almost all wearable dinosaur apparel is based on the T Rex. Probably for wearability reasons. But, for example, surely the costumes designed for our four legged friends are an opportunity to mix it up a bit? A missed opportunity if you ask me. Not that I advocate dressing beagles in any form of reptilean themed clothing.

Bestival 2009

So I've stopped throwing a tantrum about missing Secret Garden for a wedding and have started to get excited about Bestival's Space Costume opportunities.

In a moment of hasty generosity I promised to knit a friend a Clanger costume and am seeking inspiration from 

here

 and 

here

Meanwhile the opportunities to enthrall and impress with ROBO MAGIK are many:

Although every picture comes with inbuilt sense of dread, and memories of last year's Jellyfish debacle. Must learn to solder and also to create costumes before actually getting in the van to go. I do wonder how these will hold up in the rain. After partying in the trenches last year I am more sceptical about the appropriateness of knitwear/ cardboard boxes in a Bestival costume.

Oh stuff it, fingers crossed, pray for sun.