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The Best Mad Max Furiosa Costume Is Made of Real Car Parts

The "Mad Max" heroine is hard to emulate, but having an arm made from real scrap metal makes it easier.

Hollywood beauty-turned-badass Charlize Theron's performace as Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road was awesome, not just because she was a woman showing up our titular hero, but because everything she does is objectively cool, regardless of gender. From opening night, it was obvious that Furiosa costumes would be the attire of choice at costume-themed events like Comic Con and Halloween. At NYCC, I met Blake Lichtenberger, an amateur mechanic who designed and built his fiancé, Evelin Kawaiiyo, the best Furiosa outfit I've ever seen.

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"Last year I started working on my own car to save money from going to a mechanic," Lichtenberger tells The Creators Project. "I became fairly familiar with most automotive parts, and when me and my fiancé saw the new Mad Max in May, she asked me if we should cosplay those characters." He moved forward with the project after seeking advice on The RPF, scanning reference images of the most challenging costume component: Furiosa's mechanical arm. "Eventually it hit me that most of the parts on her arm were either auto parts or tools used by auto mechanics. Other than the nuts and screws and aluminum plating that I had mended and shaped, everything was bought at AutoZone."

Images courtesy the artist

A video posted by Kawaiiyo (@evelinkawaiiyo) on Jun 28, 2015 at 7:02pm PDT

Looking closely at the arm, you'll see it's a veritable mechanical cornucopia of copper wire, electrical tape, insulated tubing, and even a wrench. "The ligaments used for the forearm are just a wrench, a gas compressed lift used for trunks, and a vacuum line. These are very common parts that are not very expensive, which helped by not putting a huge dent in my wallet," Lichtenberger explains. The RPF community, a forum for recreating Hollywood costumes, theorized about a lot of the arm's functionality, which was critical to designing a realistic replica. They are very thorough.

"One of the other more interesting parts I identified was the shoulder plate and connecting tube, which was a the inner tube of a bicycle tire," Lichtenberger continues. "Also there is a lawn mower starter cord installed on her shoulder plate. We assume that its a mechanical igniter of some sort to make her arm work (in theory). Most of the hand was made with aluminum paneling and nuts and screws. (Cutting metal by hand is not easy, by the way.) I was also able to make that infamous hook finger which we have identified as a surgical tool or lumber tool—still cant figure that one out so I just made my own. And if you'll notice the metal grating on the fingers, it is actually a really cheap cheese grater."

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Check out Lichtenberger and Kawaiiyo's Furiosa costume in the images below.

See more Halloween inspiration on Blake Lichtenberger's cosplay Instagram.

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