Elaborate costumes can be awesome looking but are not always comfy. These DIY Batman and Robin costumes are simple to make and more importantly comfy to wear.
This year we were headed to Mickey’s Halloween Party again and needed a family Halloween costume theme that was theme park friendly. While costumes like Dusty and El Chupacabra from Disney Planes are fun to make and wear at home, they don’t work well for riding roller coasters or standing in a crowd watching fireworks!
Batman and Robin Costumes
I needed our costumes to be comfortable, easy to make and adjustable for the weather. Luckily we had already chosen superhero costumes for our Halloween party theme.
This gave us plenty of comic book characters from either Marvel or DC Comics to choose from. The boys chose the heroes of Gotham City, Batman and Robin. They are big fans of Teen Titans and the Justice League.
We decided to keep our Robin idea nostalgic and inspired by the original Robin costume. Our Bruce Wayne, aka Batman color scheme was more of a Dark Knight all black look.
Easy costumes are the best and instead of 4 ideas, I only needed 2. Our plan was to have one adult Batman twinning with one kid Batman and one adult Robin costume twinning with a kid Robin costume.
The final costumes were simply athletic shorts and costume shirts with a few key accessories. It can still be quite warm in Arizona and at Disneyland in Southern California during the fall, so wearing shorts made the most sense.
DIY Robin and Batman Costumes
Batman and Robin Costumes using T-Shirts
I found Batman shirts for Peter and Elliot online. Elliot’s was even on sale which I loved. I knew both would enjoy wearing these shirts beyond Halloween so the purchases made sense.
Robin shirts were harder to find so we made our own. I printed a Robin logo I found online on Iron-On Transfers (like our DIY LEGO shirts) and applied it to plain red shirts. It was a simple and inexpensive solution for our Boy Wonder costumes.
If you want a more muscled chest look, then I suggest checking out some of the options on Amazon.
Athletic Shorts
Again both Disneyland and Arizona can be quite warm around Halloween, so we opted for shorts over pants. Black athletic shorts for the Batman pair and green athletic shorts for the Robin pair. These are easily found at consignment stores or discount chains if you don’t already own them.
We could have swapped for pants, or worn undershirts had the weather turned cold. I think green leggings with a tutu would have been a fun girly Boy Wonder version.
Buy or DIY Capes
You can’t dress up as the caped crusader without a cape! You can easily buy capes online or with a little effort make superhero capes like I did.
Batman wore a black cape and Robin wore a yellow cape. Bonus – the DIY capes are much cheaper when you need 4 and I had excess fabric leftover for another project.
Superhero Shoes
Quinn and I wore black Crocs. Elliot and Peter wore tennis shoes. Again looking for comfortable shoes for walking around Disneyland. This also helps when trick or treating as well.
Buy or DIY Batman and Robin Costume Mask
We had a hard blue batman mask in our costume box so we spray painted it black for Elliot. For both Robin eye masks and Peter’s Batman mask, I simply googled superhero mask templates.
There are a ton of them online! I printed a couple and tested the paper versions before picking the ones that worked best for us. Keep in mind you may need to print the image bigger or adjust the size of the eye holes.
I used double-sided tape to stick the template on to the black felt and then cut out the design. Add a string of elastic and you are done.
Batman Gloves
My brother and sister-in-law splurged and bought the boys Batman gloves from a costume store. They are a pair of gloves with little fins on them – I am sure they could be easily homemade too using standard black gloves.
Batman Boomerangs
Originally I planned on just buying foam Batman Batarangs but Quinn decided he wanted to make his own. They were pretty darn easy to make too. I simply found an image on google to use as a template.
Then I traced the batarangs on to an empty cereal box and cut it out. I let Quinn go to town on decorating them with duct tape. Obviously your decorating results will vary. 😉
Again this costume can be adjusted for colder weather and easily go from little guy to big guy. Switch the shorts for sweatpants and use long sleeve t-shirts or sweatshirts on top! I considered wearing green leggings and a tutu to make a more female Robin version but my practical side won out. Shorts are cooler and a tutu would interfere with sitting on rides.
More Superhero Costume Ideas
This post was originally published October 30, 2013.
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