Some friends of ours held a big 80’s themed costume party this weekend. I’ve always wanted to put together a Ghostbusters uniform so this seemed like a golden opportunity to make it happen: Themed party, willing wife, disposable income, and a great online resource (that’s you guys!)
Here’s what we ended up with: 
The original goal was to spend maybe 2x what a normal Halloween costume might cost. We figured flight suits, belt, and patches would be plenty. No one would have any trouble recognizing us. It snowballed in a big way once I got going on things though.
First, neither one of us had any kind of black “boot” to wear and it looked dumb with shoes so I found some surplus boots that were pretty cheap and looked about right so I got both of us a pair.
Proton packs were determined to be out of our reach for this year for time & money reasons - and practical reasons I suppose; What would i do with a proton pack after this week? The suits seemed a little “off” though without the packs and after looking at a lot of pictures, i decided it was the gaps where pack straps would go. So I had the idea (got it from someone here I believe) to get some GI suspenders. From the front, it looks a lot like we’re carrying packs. Score!
The name patches came off etsy. We had a bit of a debate about using our own names or movie names but decided our names would be more appropriate (and awesome) since we weren’t necessarily going as characters. Though i could probably do a mean Stanz 
I saw the Matty PKE meter and had to have it. So we picked that up but it seemed unfair that there wouldn’t be a gizmo for her too, so i looked around here and saw the ubiquitous paranorman goggles everyone seems to favor. Looked easy enough so i put that together
Managed to snag some gloves off the site store after striking out in a number of other places to find something appropriate. Most of the gloves i saw were colored or looked like what Judge Doom used to dip toons.
The radios were tough. I started watching ebay like a hawk around the start of sept. I really didn’t want to drop a ton of money on radios but without packs or traps i felt like we needed as many accessories as possible. Each auction i got outbid on increased the bloodlust to score a pair of radios. I set a soft limit at around 40 bucks but the shipping most people were charging was eating into that pretty heavily, making it relatively impossible to score a pair MT500, MT1000, HT220, HT600 for under 35 bucks. I got very very close several times though!
By mid-oct i was ready to give up on ebay since I was concerned about shipping times and came back here looking to discuss constructing one out of wood or foam or something. That was when drjameshouse came to the rescue. He offered to sell me two MT500’s that he wasn’t using. Big time score! They even had belt clips, saving us the hassle of finding or making holsters.
I pre-ordered some of the infamous elbow pads. They got here just a few hours before we left for the party. I can see the concern, but honestly, for 25 bucks each it’s as good as I needed them to be. I was really, really not looking forward to trying to dye pads.
Saw a thread last week or so about PKE holsters which i can’t find now and bought a craftsman tape measure holster. One removed label and a little trimming at the bottom later and i have a pretty perfect holster. Thanks again gbfans.com
Here’s how they came out. My wife was concerned about going out unarmed and opted to bring her zombie killing driver along in a sword holster. Fit right over the suspender straps perfectly
We were a pretty big hit at the party. Everyone was very excited to see our costumes and we got a ton of compliments. One interesting thing I hadn’t thought of: Since we had the straps, everyone assumed we had proton packs and wanted to see them but were confused when we turned and had empty backs. In a weird way, i felt like it ended up detracting from the success of the costume a little because there’s that (brief) moment of disappointment that shows up on everyone’s face.
Next year:
- Better goggles - might try to get night vision frames & machined eyepieces. I definitely would like to add some led’s to it though one way or the other
Radio Holsters - the belt clips worked great for tonight but i’d be worried about walking around comic con or something with them. Holsters seem like a must in the future
Belt Gizmo - Really liked TheRockman’s el cheapo gizmo. Seems like something i could actually make
Ghost Grenades - saw busybuildr’s plans last week. was kind of out of time to give it a go but they look fantastic and would love to try and build a pair in the future
Traps - Haven’t decided if i want to build a foam one or what but there are a lot of cool contenders on this site.
Thanks to:
- AJ - great site, great community, great store. I know those elbow pads didn’t work out for you but i’m pretty happy with mine. Way better than having to dye some, even if they aren’t perfect
Paranorman - love those goggles!
LandoSystem - Gave me confidence that a big guy like me could pull off the suit and really loved his supernatural take on things. Also, that holy water sprayer is inspired!
drjameshouse - My radio hero!
All the ecto guys - so many great threads in there. Makes me want to paint my car white and get to work
Everyone else - This is really a great community with a ton of creativity and very little militant fanaticism to “screen accuracy”. Hat’s off to everyone!