What do Miraculous Ladybug, a Mermaid, and Tornado have in common?

Absolutely nothing. Which is why my children chose to design their costumes in such a way as to have me working to each individual’s specifications. Tornado for the eldest, Miraculous Ladybug for Ms. Middle, and Mermaid for the littlest Lovett. Pinterest was a huge help for all of these lofty designs. So if I can pay it forward to any ambitiously creative parents out there, all the better.

Mask Supplies

  • Red thick foam

  • Mesh Fabric

  • Red, Black Fabric Paint

  • Circle Template (Bottle cap upcycle)

  • Hot Glue (partial to Gorilla Glue)

  • Fabric Glue or Modge Podge

  • Wire

  • Red Felt

  • Elastic

Leotard Supplies

  • Leotard Base

  • Sportflex Black HTV

  • Mesh Fabric

  • Off-White Fabric Paint

Shoes

  • Red or White Shoes

  • Circle Template or Bottle Cap

  • Chalk

  • Black Fabric Paint

Ladybug Yo-Yo

Getting Started

Using a super hero mask the kids already had on hand, I outlined the basic Ladybug mask shape on thick foam, and cut it out.

Dots

I traced the outside of a water bottle cap and used an X-acto knife to cut out the shape.

Texture

Paint fabric glue/Modge Podge on the mask and circles.

Place mesh fabric over all glued surfaces, and give them another coat of glue.

Paint red fabric paint covering the entire front surface, allowing for excess to be trimmed once dry.

Paint black fabric paint over all circle pieces.

Glue down excess trim on the backside.

I only wrapped the excess on the side of the dots facing out so they could be glued to the mask seamlessly.

Trim excess fabric

Glue three pieces of wire to create a bendable structure that will keep its form.

Skeleton

Not pictured, but I added a vertical wire running along the length of the middle behind the center circle after I glued in the circles.

Almost there!

Glue along the edge of the circles and place in their respective positions. If you over glue, you can melt off the extra bits with the glue gun tip. Measure the elastic strap, and glue to the sides.

Lining

Glue felt lining over back structure.

Bend mask to face form.

Sealant of Modge Podge to wrap things up.

Masked 4 year old.

Ladybug Accessories

What’s a Ladybug without accessories? Well, this little Ladybug certainly cannot work to the best of her ability without the proper equipment.

Ladybug Yo-Yo tool

Ladybug’s accessory helps her fight evil Hawk Moth, and the only way she can properly defeat evil is when she has her backup theme music. For this obstacle, a microcontroller with vibration sensors and audio/light capabilities will do the job just fine. The lighting ended up being unnecessary due to the opaque filament and paint, but in other conditions would have been a neat feature.

Yo-yo top of model

Yo-yo bottom of model

Audio and lighting Code

import time import board import busio import digitalio import pwmio import audioio import audiomp3 from rainbowio import colorwheel import neopixel import adafruit_lis3dh tap_count = 0 first_tap_time = 0 tap_cooldown = 50 # 50 milliseconds last_tap_time = 0 tap_window = 1500 # 1.5 seconds in milliseconds current_duty_cycle = 0 increment = 1024 max_duty_cycle = 65535 min_duty_cycle = 0 i2c = busio.I2C(board.SCL, board.SDA) int1 = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.D6) accel = adafruit_lis3dh.LIS3DH_I2C(i2c, int1=int1) accel.range = adafruit_lis3dh.RANGE_4_G accel.set_tap(1, 100) button = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.A1) button.switch_to_input(pull=digitalio.Pull.UP) enable = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.D10) enable.direction = digitalio.Direction.OUTPUT enable.value = True speaker = audioio.AudioOut(board.A0) red = pwmio.PWMOut(board.D11, duty_cycle=0, frequency=20000) green = pwmio.PWMOut(board.D12, duty_cycle=0, frequency=20000) blue = pwmio.PWMOut(board.D13, duty_cycle=0, frequency=20000) while True: current_duty_cycle += increment print("Current Duty Cycle:", current_duty_cycle) if current_duty_cycle >= max_duty_cycle or current_duty_cycle <= min_duty_cycle: increment = -increment # Reverse the direction current_duty_cycle += 2 * increment # This ensures that we don't get stuck at max/min red.duty_cycle = current_duty_cycle green.duty_cycle = current_duty_cycle blue.duty_cycle = current_duty_cycle time.sleep(0.005) # Slow down the loop for observation now = time.monotonic() * 1000 # Current time in milliseconds if now - first_tap_time > tap_window: if first_tap_time != 0: if tap_count == 2: if not speaker.playing: sample = "beeps.mp3" mp3stream = audiomp3.MP3Decoder(open(sample, "rb")) speaker.play(mp3stream) first_tap_time = 0 tap_count = 0 if accel.tapped: if now - last_tap_time > tap_cooldown: last_tap_time = now if first_tap_time == 0: first_tap_time = now tap_count += 1 if tap_count == 3: if speaker.playing: speaker.stop() else: sample = "song.mp3" mp3stream = audiomp3.MP3Decoder(open(sample, "rb")) speaker.play(mp3stream) tap_count = 0 first_tap_time = 0

Buff out all of the uneven layers and imperfections. I went up to a 220 grain for this.

Precautions

Cover the inside beveled edge with painters tape to avoid any future closure headaches. Always sand and spray outside in a well ventilated area while wearing proper breathing protections.

Trying to get an even spray is difficult when nature gets in the way. Note to self: keep bugs away from wet paint.

Apply black vinyl decals for the spots. I did find some creasing laying them across curved edges. Poking the crease with a pin and pressing it down will help further flatten the vinyl. The layer of sealant helped even some of this out in the end. Another option to avoid this altogether is to bring out your trusty bottle cap once more to trace outlines for the spots and paint in with black acrylic.

Holes

Foamcutter was the perfect solution for releasing the speaker holes, but any kind of sharp pokey tool should do the job cutting through vinyl just fine. Finishing polish with a couple layers of high gloss polyurethane.

The inner workings of Ladybug’s accessory. A microcontroller that can play audio and detect vibrations. Turning it on/off took a few taps which was great fun for Ladybug on our trick-or-treating adventure. The light was unnecessary in the end because of the opaque filament and paint, but the intention was there.

Make It An Accessory

Ladybug just could not be without her tooling. String some elastic thread through the holes on the inside and wrap around your subject in whatever fashion they see fit. (They are Ladybug, after all.) Do not be like me, and tape off the inside bevel Before! painting. My closure was too gunked up to fully fit again. Hot glue for the win!

You Are Ladybug!

Fully equipped and ready for action.

Featuring the musical stylings of Ladybug! Featuring the musical stylings of Ladybug! The device turns on/off through tapping. A feature well exercised on our trick-or-treating adventure.