You can Toucan! Make a talking toucan costume

Enchanted by toucans and their huge colorful beaks, our family decided to be toucans for Halloween. In this post, I share how I made a talking toucan costume using mostly common household materials.

Jump to:

• Super simple version
• Design
• Materials 
• Beak: simple beak, complex beak, attachments
• Eyes
• Wings and body
• Putting it all together 

During our summer trip to Costa Rica, we loved seeing the different species of toucans, each with their unique colors and sounds. We each made costumes of our favorite species of toucan: my kid made an emerald toucanet mask, my partner made a yellow-throated toucan mask, and I made a talking fiery-billed araçari costume. Of course I had to choose the most flamboyant species! 

You can adapt these instructions for any type of toucan you want by varying the color of the beak and what you wear. You can also do as little and as much of the design you wish. See below for a super simple version.

Super simple version

You can make a super simple version of this costume by:

1. making the simple beak (instructions below)
2. attaching it with strong tape to a hoodie or cap, and
3. making and taping the eyes (instructions below) to the side.

Design

I wanted to capture the true colors and anatomy of the toucan, so I started by studying and drawing the fiery-billed araçari that we saw on Osa Peninsula, near Corcovado National Park and Bosque del Rio Tigre. Fiery-billed araçaris are a medium-sized species of toucan in the genus Pteroglossus that live only in the humid lowland forests of western Costa Rica and western Panama. The name “araçari” originates from the Tupi people, who are indigenous to the Amazon rainforest. 

Araçaris primarily eat fruit, sometimes insects, eggs of other birds and young birds of pigeons and woodpeckers. They will force woodpeckers out their nest holes and take them over to lay their own eggs. These facts feel sad to me as a human, but I must remind myself that it’s a jungle out there! Each living being is doing their best to survive. 

Here’s the fiery-billed araçari we saw jumping around a tree looking for berries and insects to eat, and one in flight so you can see the body and wings:

From these drawings, I sketched out design ideas until I came up with ones I liked. Copying the exact proportions of the araçari would make my beak humongous and heavy at 3 times longer than the front-to-back length of my head, so I made it closer to 2 times longer. I decided to use a strap system, but you can also mount the top beak on a baseball cap. I discovered that strapping the bottom beak to my lower jaw made the beak move as I opened and closed my mouth: ta da! A talking toucan!! 

For the head, I wanted to wear the hood of a black hoodies and stick on eyes. I decided to wear a yellow shirt for the body (which I happened to have just dyed with pomegranate from my family’s farm earlier this year!), add a black fabric patch for the black chest patch, a long red sash for the red belly band, and wings cut from an old black bedsheet that I would pin or hand sew onto the back of the hoodie. I used whatever black and red fabrics I had lying around. 

Here are my sketches of my final beak and body design: 

And the wing design, using my drawing of the araçari in flight to shape it: 

Materials

Beak:

• Cardstock: 8-10 sheets of letter or A4-sized (about  8.5×11”); plain color to paint and/or in the colors you want, ideally 200-300 gsm thickness.
  • Alternatives: old cereal boxes, cardstock inserts from clothing packages, construction paper is a bit thin/soft but would work for smaller beaks; corrugated cardboard is too thick to bend and would be harder to use. 
• Craft glue and/or hot glue gun
• Strap material: about 250 cm or 100” of ready-made straps, velcro strips, canvas or other strong flexible material cut into 2-3 cm or 1” tall strips.
• (optional) ruler and folding tool (butter knife, bone folder) to make clean, sharp creases.
• (optional) Velcro strips for attaching the straps if you don’t tie them or use other attachments. 
• (optional) Acrylic paints if you want to paint your beak.

Head and eyes:

• Black hoodie
  • Alternatives: baseball cap, visor cap, beanie, plain-ish hat.
• Small pieces of fabric in black, yellow and red (about 5×10 cm or 2×4” each)
  • Alternatives: any fabric with black, yellow and red paints that will stick… or paint the eyes directly on the hood, cap, beanie or hat! 

Body and wings: 

• Black hoodie or jacket
• Yellow shirt
• Black fabric or felt for the wings, sized for you; mine is 50×150 cm (~20×200”)
• Optional details specific to the fiery-billed araçari:
  • Black chest patch: small piece of fabric in black (about 5×13 cm or 2×5”) or black paper or black paint.
  • Red belly band: red fabric or felt about 13 cm (5”) tall and 170 cm (68”) in length. 
  • To be truer to  fiery-billed araçari colors, I would wear rusty red/brown colored pants and green shoes, but since I don’t have those, I just wore black pants and brown boots. 

Beak step-by-step

I first played around with a few beak prototypes using scrap paper, glue and velcro bits. 

To make a simple beak:

I made as simple beak as a prototype but not a full-sized one: 

1. Top beak: glue cardstock pieces together so they form a sheet at least 40 cm (16”) long and 30 cm (12” wide).
2. Fold in half the long way.
3. Draw the beak shape on one side, keeping the head half of the top side along the folded edge (see photos below).
4. Cut out the beak along the bottom edge and curved front edge. Don’t cut the top folded area closest to the head. 
5. Glue the top curved part of the beak together. 
6. Bottom beak: repeat steps 1-3 above to form a sheet that’s at least 36 cm (14”) long and 22 cm (8.5”) wide. 
7. Cut the bottom beak along the curved upper edge. 

Here are photos of how I made the prototype. I used scrap paper and not with the full-sized cardstock described above, but I think you get a good visual of how it is made:

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After seeing my kid make an amazing emerald toucanet mask using Steve Wintercroft’s geometric toucan template, I decided to splurge and use his design to make just the beak. 

Since there is a very small field of vision in the Wintercroft mask design, I decided to customize the rest of the costume in order to 1) have a clearer visual field, 2) make a moving beak so the toucan can talk!, and 3) include more of the body. 

To make the beak using the Wintercroft toucan template:

1. Print the pages with pieces labeled A through K and the upper and lower beak braces.
2. Write the colors on each piece, if using colored cardstock, using Wintercroft’s color suggestions as a color mapping guide. Wintercroft’s toucan is colored more like a Toco toucan. 
3. Cut out each piece labeled A through K as well as the beak braces. It does not have to be precise along the lines since you will be cutting the cardstock more precisely. 
4. Use a glue stick (or any non-toxic glue or double-sided tape) to stick each template piece to the cardstock with the corresponding color you’ve mapped. Optional: I used an old weak glue stick for this because I wanted to be able to remove the template pieces after cutting and folding the cardstock. After removing the template pieces, I wrote the numbers onto the cardstock. This made the beak lighter and with less visual clutter. 
5. Fold inward (valley fold) along the dashed lines and fold outward (mountain fold) along the dotted lines. I used a ruler and bone folder to keep the folds clean and crisp. 
6. Assemble the pieces in alphabetical order, as described in Wintercroft instructions. 
7. Glue the matching numbered tabs together with the tabs on the inside of the mask. I used craft glue; you can also use double-sided tape or a glue gun. If you are only making the beak part of the template, which is what I did, you will have extra tabs left on the head side of the beak. I glued the extra tabs on the top beak and left the small one on the bottom beak. 
8. Add the upper and lower beak braces along the hatched surfaces to strengthen the structure. The bottom beak brace looks like a tongue, so feel free to get creative with the color! 

To make the beak attachments:

I first tested the strap design with the simple beak prototype. I liked having the velcro closures because you can adjust their position and size for different heads and situations. I have a large roll of velcro strap material I found at a garage sale long ago and lots of leftover velcro bits from other projects, so it was an easy choice for me. The steps I followed are listed below.

Alternatively, you can use whatever strong fabric or extra strap material you have around and tie it around your head. Or if you use a cap, you can glue or tape the top beak to the cap. Lots of possibilities here! 

Velcro strap step-by-step: 

1. Cut the strap material: cut ready-made straps, velcro strips, canvas or other strong flexible material into 5-6 pieces about 40 cm (16”) long.
   1. This was an extra long length for my small adult head, so it should fit a lot of head sizes, but check to make sure it will be long enough for your head. 
   2. Cut 5 pieces if you want one strap for the top of your top beak. 
   3. Cut 6 pieces if you want two straps for the top of your top beak, which allows you to close it around a ponytail or bun. This is what I did. 
2. Glue or securely tape the straps to the top and sides of the top beak. Please see the placement in the photos below. I used a glue gun to make the attachment strong.
3. Check the strap sizing and velcro placement by putting the top beak on your head and marking where the straps meet with a clip, pin or sticker. 
4. Stick or glue matching velcro hook and loop pieces to the marked spots, making sure each strap has a way to be securely attached to each other. My velcro pieces had a very strong sticky tape side so I used that to stick them on the straps. 
5. Repeat the same process for the two straps for the bottom beak, one on each side. When marking where the velcro closures go, make sure to have the bottom beak where you want to wear it: e.g. over your lower jaw if you want it to move when you talk, or on your upper jaw near your nose if you want it closer to your top beak. 

Eyes step-by-step

Each species of toucan has a unique eye color pattern, so you may want to look at them to choose your eye colors. The fiery-billed araçari has a large black oval pupil, yellow iris, and black and red eye skin with a distinctive triangular section of red skin radiating out from the eyes. 

1. Find materials that match the eye colors you want. I used a mix of material I had around: red felt for the red skin, black cotton canvas for the black skin, yellow synthetic woven fabric for the yellow iris, and black iridescent synthetic knit fabric for the pupil. 
2. Cut the base eye skin into a circle about 5 cm (2”) in diameter. I found a bottle that was around this size and used it to trace the circle on the fabric and then cut it. 
3. Cut the iris into a slightly smaller circle. I used the same bottle to trace the circle and cut about ½ cm (0.2”) within the lines to make it smaller. 
4. Cut the pupil into a smaller circle. Since the fiery-billed araçari has an oval pupil, I cut mine into an oval shape. 
5. Glue all the pieces together with craft glue. I tried to get fancy and put a tiny bit of stuffing under the black pupil to make it round and puff out, but it really didn’t add much, and it was messy, so I don’t think it’s worth doing. 
6. Attach the eyes to whatever you’re using for the head. I attached my eyes to the hoodie with double-sided tape and rolled duct tape since I will want to remove them and wear the hoodie for other purposes later. 

Wings and body step-by-step

The fiery-billed araçari has an extra colorful body compared to most toucans, so I tried to match its colors in the rest of what I was wearing: plain yellow shirt for the yellow chest, black patch of fabric for the black chest patch, red felt sash for the red belly band and red rump feathers, black fabric for the wings. 

1. Cut a 5×13 cm (2×5”) black patch out of black fabric or paper. Attach to the front of the yellow shirt with double-sided tape. 
2. Cut a 13×170 cm (5×68”) sash from red felt or fabric for the red belly band and rump. I tied it around my waist in the back so the ends hung down as the red rump feathers. 
3. Draw and cut the wings from a large piece of black fabric or felt. Mine is 50×150 cm (~20×200”) with the feather pattern taken from my drawing of the araçari in flight (pictured above).
   1. Note: black felt or a stiff fabric would show the feather shapes better. I only had an old flat bedsheet made of stretchy black cotton knit, which curled and flopped after I cut the feathers. I tried to stiffen the feathers with a dilute cornstarch mix, but it sadly made it chalky white and not very stiff. Next time, I would just skip trying to stiffen it. 
4. Attach the wings to the hoodie with pins or hand sewing. I hand sewed the wings on with black thread and a super loose and long running stitch so I can easily pull it out and repurpose the hoodie and wings later. 
5. If you have clothes that match the legs and feet of your toucan, you can wear those. I didn’t have brown pants or green shoes, so I just wore black pants and shoes. 

Putting it all together

Now you have all the parts of the toucan costume. It’s time to pull it all together! Wooo!! 

1. Put on the pants, yellow shirt with black chest patch, and tie the red sash around your waist and let the ends hang down your rump. 
2. Strap the top beak to your head. Adjust the tightness and position as needed. 
3. Strap the bottom beak to your head. Place it on your lower jaw if you want to be a talking toucan. 🙂
4. Put on the hoodie and the hood.

Now you can toucan too!! Enjoy flapping around with your big beautiful beak and surprising people!