Dragon Costumes

There are many options for creating a costume, but one classic choice is surprisingly rare; the dragon! The dragon is an instantly recognizable mythological creature and there are many inventive ways to develop a costume with this theme. Below are the main costumes types and some of my favorite examples collected from across the internet.

The most technically difficult part of a dragon costume is the head. It needs to immediately look like a dragon, and that is harder to accomplish than you might think. So the shortcut I took was purchasing a pre-made mask, Many are available, but I went with the Brimstone mask (right). it has a very dramatic appearance and adds to your height. The down side is that it really limits your field of vision and gets very stifling after a while.

The most obvious approach for many people is to create a full body suit to which you can attach a tail and headpiece or mask. Even a fairly haphazard assemblage, like the historical example below, has a certain charm. A modern example can be created by combining green (or otherwise matching) one-sie pajamas with gloves, wings, and a dragon mask.

^{Photo credit: The Library of Congress / Foter.com}

Most pre-made dragon costume available in stores follow a lose body suit design. It is also open to a wide range of custom interpretation such as the leather dragon costume shown right.

There are also ready-made dragon-themed loose pajama style body suit (such is this one designed to resemble "Toothless" from How to Train Your Dragon) is referred to as a Kugurumi.

The body suit can be padded out to created a radically different body shape.

Mascot style costumes are often humorous or cartoonish in style. A number of off-the-peg mascot designs are available. This one with the high neck is particularly cool.

Examples:

• Flaming lips (2003)

A dragon is the actual mascot of schools including Drexel and New York Islanders/Dragons;and the Dunking Devils acrobatic team.

A more sophisticated version of the mascot style is a fursuit. Fursuits are costumes of anthropomorphic (human-like) animals of all types, including mythical animals.

Examples:

• Acid Dragon (2007)
• Drathek Dragon (2011)
• Asian Dragon (2012)

A traditional Chinese dragon costume includes a large ornate head with moving parts, and then a number of people operating a long, sinuous body.

^{fifikins / Foter.com / CC BY}

And of course there are always pet versions of your favorite costumes. This white dragon is possibly the coolist of them all. I wish I had a dog who was cooperative enough to wear something like this.

Examples:

• Dachshund (2007)
• Chinese Dragon dogs (2009)

So you can see there are a lot of unique options to pursue if you decide to buy, customize, or create a dragon costume of your very own!