How to Make a Fish Costume

If you are wondering how to make a fish costume and worried it’s going to take an insane amount of time and effort and in the end look not at all what you hope, let the worry go. Fish costumes, whether you use a pattern or not, don’t have to be hard. And as an added bonus, they can be a lot of fun for both you and your kids to make!

You don't have to sew to make a fish costume - just get crafty.

It may sound silly, but the first choice you need to make is what sort of fish you want to replicate. Obviously, you’re not trying to be exact unless you’re a costume designer, but if you have a sense of whether this will be a goldfish, a catfish, Nemo or a shark, you’ll have an easier time planning.

You also need to determine if it’s a full-body costume or just a head. It might be simpler and more practical to make a fish head and perhaps some fins for the arms and otherwise just wear a sweat suit or bodystocking.

No matter what, the head is the most important aspect of the costume, and the good news is that you can make an excellent fish head without any sewing skills at all. Craft store foam, pieced together using appropriate glue (hot glue will cause melting) or even heavy-duty staples, will make excellent fish heads. Add fabric or even construction paper details and you’ll soon be done.

Cardboard or papier mache are also popular choices, but these can be fussier to work with, as well as more delicate.

Finally, for the sake of a child’s comfort, you might want to build the costume onto a hat. This also allows you to make something more elaborate that won’t weigh the child down.

When you are teaching yourself how to make a fish costume, one of the most important steps is planning ahead. You don’t have to be able to draw well to sketch the general look of the costume. Browse the Internet for pictures of colorful fish, as well as people in fish costumes to help you refine your idea. The basic shape of the head is fairly standard, but how do you want your eyes to look? What color combinations are you interested in? How elaborate would you like the fins to be? Get a sense of all these things before you hit the craft or fabric store.

The good thing about working with foam sheets (which come in several colors so you don’t have to worry about fabric paint) is that you can bend them into shape and get a sense of the final product before you commit yourself to gluing or stapling. Remember to have the mouth be wide so that your child can see out easily (although side vision will be obscured).

Now that you have a sense of how to make a fish costume, try to relax and have fun as you do the work. The eyes don’t have to have white sclera, they can be whatever color you like. You can get ends of chiffon or lame for the fins. A catfish can have nice long whiskers. Nothing needs to be exact, it just needs to look vibrant.

You can also be inventive. A rainbow fish can have long multi-colored fins, an angel fish can wear a halo and a jelly fish can carry a jar of peanut butter. Depending on what the costume is for, you can get very silly.

For an adult’s costume, use a mermaid pattern for the body and then, if you don’t want to build a head, consider a homemade mask or a hat with flowing fins. Sometimes, just a suggestion of the costume is effective. Take your time and enjoy yourself!

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