While most of my costuming tends towards the elaborate and rather expensive, I also have made some pretty low-budget costumes as well.  Here are a few ideas for cheap Sci-Fi themed costumes.  I hope you find something here that you can use.

Mech Pilot: Decorate a helmet with a number or logo of your choice.  Find a tight fitting shirt and pants and decorate the shirt with a matching logo.

Mummy: Buy a white sheet at the second hand store and tear it into strips.  You can either sew or hot glue the strips to some old clothes you don’t care about anymore.  Put them on and wrap a few around your head as a mask.

Mech Mechanic: Find a pair of overhaul and smear them with grease.  If you want to make sure it won’t rub off an anything then use a black sharpie to create the look of grease.  Use some black face make up or the black stuff that football players use to dirty up your face and hands.  Carry a wrench around with you.

Zombie: This is pretty easy to do, it just requires a bit of make-up and staining up an outfit you don’t care about anymore.  My favorite zombie I have done was wearing a girls dress from Value Village, had my hair up in pig tails and carried around a teddy bear I had used a red sharpie on and half removed its head.  Guess I should mention I am only 4’10” so could really pull off the young girl thing.

Cat Girl: Any cute outfit can go sci-fi/anime with the simple addition of cat ears and a cat tail.  No back story or justification required.

Mad Scientist: A white lab coat that has been stained up with a number of different colors.  To that blacken up your face and use copious amounts of hair spray to make your hair fly back, in that my experiment just exploded in my face sort of way.

I would love to hear your ideas.  Please share them in the comments section.