Celebrate ‘Walk On Stilts’ Day With Giant Robots!

Today is National Walk on Stilts Day. Seriously, Google it. In recognition of the somewhat dubious day of recognition, I am highlighting one of the most accomplished stilt-walking costumers I know, Tom of Extreme Costumes.

I first met Tom at Katsucon of all places, where in 2012 I was asked to do a photo shoot for the site of someone cosplaying Bumblebee from the Transformers movies. I was expecting something like a yellow and black Iron man, so Imagine my surprise when I walked outside and saw, in the midst of all the anime-heavy cosplays, a nearly nine-foot tall, pretty movie-accurate giant space alien robot in hot rod yellow and black.

Tom has since added EVA-1 from the Evangelion series to his retinue of giant costumes along with Odin from Titanfall, as well as his own original design Overkill (the green mohawk-sporting robot). Those creations have taken the top prizes at many Halloween costume contests in Las Vegas, netting Tom many thousands in cash pries.

But the most amazing thing about Tom is that he isn’t some MIT engineering professor, or professional Disney Imagineer — he owns a car wash in his native Rhode Island. That is all raw talent, and hours upon hours of trial and error.

Next up for Tom is what might be his biggest project to date — and that is saying something, since I’ve shot pictures of most of his costumes and trying to get him to fit into a room where I have a studio set up is some challenge. In the picture to the left you can see a recent shot from his Extreme Costumes Facebook page of the progress he is making toward a full-size, screen accurate Hulkbuster Iron Man armor from Avengers: Age of Ultron. I can’t wait to try to fit that in a studio backdrop — and fail.

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