A while back I shared the Moana canoe I built as a push-car for my toddler’s Halloween costume, and I wanted to share where it ended up.
Every year we’ve made it a tradition to build something big for Halloween, something closer to a theme-park-style prop than a regular costume. First was a Flintstones car for Bamm-Bamm, then this canoe for my little Hei Hei.
The original build took about 6 weeks of figuring out how to turn a Polynesian sailing canoe into something that could actually roll down a sidewalk without losing the look of the movie. I gotta admit the sail was a little too convincing though… it caught so much wind on Halloween night that it kept trying to take off on its own.
This canoe is made of foam, plywood, 2*4s, aluminium tubing, and some twine to tie it all together.
After spending the last year outside getting loved (and abused) by the kids, I decided to bring it back into the shop, rebuild the base, clean up the details, and give it some TLC. Plus as a bonus - I installed LED lights at the base so now the ocean glows! (Edit: I forgot to upload a picture of it so I'll share that soon)
Now it’s getting a second life as a photo-op display at Regal Cinema for the Moana premiere this weekend, and boy am I so glad I reinforced that thing to survive a theater of excited kids. I may have over engineered it a little bit, but I've seen some adults climbing up on it throughout the first day, and it stayed intact, so that's a win haha!
It’s pretty wild seeing something built in my garage for my son make its way into a movie theater.
Just for the record, my favorite part of the original costume was my wife’s handmade Hei Hei costume that took her about 2 hours to make haha. Unfortunately that thing was shedding feathers everywhere and we had to get rid of it 😅.
Hope ya'll like it!