DIY Purple Minion Costume a.k.a. The Evil Minion

The Despicable Me Minions are probably my favorite silly cartoon side-kicks (although the Madagascar Penguins are close). These funny, banana-loving, yellow pill-shaped critters just make me smile. We even have a minion magnet on the car, waving “Bello!” to people as we drive down the road.

Then Illumination Entertainment came out with a new minion—the crazy, screaming, mutant purple ones (the evil minions) for Despicable Me 2. What else can you say but, BAAAHHH!

Who wouldn’t want an excuse on Halloween to dress up like an indestructible, crazed, quirky, screaming minion, who doesn’t say much and definitely doesn’t play well with others?

baah_purple_minion — Despicable Me Evil Minion – BAAH!

I know I’ve had those days when I just want to say, BAAH! to everyone. I think many people (Moms ?) have. Another plus with this costume is that you get to dress in purple.

What is an Evil/Purple Minion?

Purple minions are created when one of Gru’s nemeses hatches an evil plot to take over the world. His plan it to turn Gru’s yellow minions into his purple henchmen. To do so the normally lovable yellow minions ingest or are injected with a mutagentic serum, PX-41 developed at a special lab in the Arctic circle.

The resulting creatures are indestructible, purple, crazy, very furry, mindless killing machines. The only way to undo the effects of the PX-41 serum is with the antidote, appropriately named the PX-41 antidote, develped by Dr. Nefario. Gru’s girls get to play heros by shooting some pretty nasty tasting jelly at the purple minions to change them back into the silly yellow ones.

The minions are not the only creatures affected by the PX-41 serum, because we also see the effects of the PX-41 serum on El Macho. You can see some of the fun animation testing for the purple minion (and perhaps how to behave if you dress as a purple minion) in the YouTube Clip from Illumination Entertainment:

DIY Evil Minion Costume

One Eyed Purple Minion — Assemble a Purple Minion Costume

Since this was one of my favorite costumes for 2013, I had to add it to our growing collection of Costume Detective costume ideas. I think this costume is going to continue to be a popular alternative (or complement) costume for Despicable Me fans who want to dress like Minions for Halloween or other occasions.

When I wrote the original Make a Purple Evil Minion Costume lens on Squidoo in July 2013 there were no “How To’s” for making the evil purple minion costume. Lots of tutorials for making the yellow minion, but no purples.

Many of the current costume tutorials require a lot of crafting to get the costume done; this tutorial requires no sewing and minimal crafting.

Items Needed for a No-Sew Purple Minion Costume

An evil purple minon costume is one of those costumes that can be easily assembled from many ordinary items with a few special extras. From top to bottom is a list of the items needed to turn into an evil minion.

Punk Purple Wig *
Purple Face Paint *
Goggles
Gnarly Fake Teeth *
Purple Long-sleeved Turtle Neck Top
Elongated arms
Black overalls
El Macho “M” Logo (Free here)
Black Mittens or Gloves
Black Boots

Look to see if you have goggles, turtle neck top, overalls, black gloves and black boots. (There are links to free downloads for Minion Goggles and the El Macho “M” logo later on the page.) * Are the special extra items you might need to purchase.

The gnarly fake teeth give you minion like teeth. With the purple face paint you can paint yourself purple. If the rest of your costume is long sleeves and a turtleneck, there is less exposed skin to cover with purple face paint.

Don’t forget the gloves to cover you hands so you don’t have to paint them purple too.

Elongated, Skinny Floppy Arms

The true Evil minion has very long floppy, backwards facing arms. If you want to have really long arms, you may have to do a bit of stitching to create long skinny purple tubes from purple fabric. Stuff the arms with stuffing and add mittens on the ends. You may want to use toddler sized mittens since these minions have very small hands.

To wear, you need to keep your own arms inside, with the floppy ones outside.

Purple Minion Hair & Styles

To be a purple minion you need to have purple hair, but many people probably don’t want to dye their hair purple.

This is where wigs come in handy, like the Groovy Purple Punk Wig. All you have to do is frizz it out. The crazier the better.

To figure out how to create evil minion hair and makeup I wrote a separate section just on Purple Minion Make up and Hair to give you ideas for creating your own purple minion crazy styles.

Despicable Me Minion Goggles

Pre-made Goggles

Since I think the goggles are some of the minions coolest accessories, I would buy goggles rather than make them.

The ArcOne Fly Safety Goggles also came in handy when I dressed like Victor from Frankenweenie.

There are different versions from the official Despicable Me minion ones below or cool, steampunk versions like the ArcOne Safety Goggles or even pre-printed paper ones, which work well for minion parties.

Note: The official versions are for yellow minions to need to be colorized to purple.

Easy to Make Minion Goggles

For help in making your own purple minion goggles, see the 5 Easy Ways to Make a Pair of Minion Goggles page for several simple ways to make a pair of one-eyed or two-eyed goggles.

The page also contains links to several images of my favorite minion goggles, the downloadable printables (both one-eyed and two-eyed) that were available for the first movie, Despicable Me and a slightly different version for Despicable Me 2.

Just be sure if you are going to use any of the yellow colored minion goggles (printable or purchased) that you colorize them for the evil minion.

For the evil minion, you will need to color the yellow parts of the minion showing purple and turn the brown minion eyes purple to match the evil purple minion.

Evil Minion Clothes

Women's Mock Turtleneck — Women’s Mock Turtleneck

Purple turtle neck tops, black overalls and black mittens may not always be easy to find. I searched for purple turtle neck tops and black overalls in sizes for the entire family.

If you end up buying clothes, get them in styles you might be able to reuse, especially if you are like me and enjoy wearing purple.

If black overalls are hard to find for boys or girls (adults too), consider getting black snow overalls, which can be dual-purpose and reused during the winter for snowboarding or skiing.

Turn your family into an army of Evil Minions.

Youth Mock Turtleneck Purple — Youth Mock Turtleneck (Purple)

Mens Mock Turtleneck Purple — Mens Mock Turtleneck

Boy's Black Snow Bib — Boy’s Black Snow Bib

Women's Bib Overall — Women’s Bib Overall

Men's Insulated Bib Overall — Men’s Insulated Bib Overall

Evil Minion – El Macho Logo

If you look carefully at the details of the front of the Funko Evil Minion overalls (click on the image to see a larger version), you can see that in place of the “G” for Gru that the yellow minions wear, the evil minions wear a stylized “M” for El Macho (or a sideways “E” for Eduardo). ⇒

To complete the look of the black overalls, you need to add a “M” logo. Since I couldn’t find one, I made one, which is now one of the free downloads for the Costume Detective.

Download and print out the “M” logo into paper or fabric. Use the template to cut out an “M” from duct tape or fabric. Then add it to the front of your Evil Minion Costume.

Ultra Easy Purple Minion Costume

Evil Minion T-Shirt — Despicable Me Evil Purple Minion T-shirt

For those who want to have an Evil Minion Costume, but don’t want to go to too much effort like perhaps teens and some tweens, the simplest way to dress like a purple minion is to just wear a purple minion shirt like the one to the right or one of the other purple minion shirts. I really like this slightly bored, crazed or lackadaisical expression.

To complete the easy purple minion costume just put on a pair of black pants. You can snazz it up a bit (but not too much) by wearing black mittens or gloves.

This is the perfect costume for that lackadaisical tween or teen. Look at those floppy arms.

Behind the Scenes Look at the Evil Minions

Hear from the director, editor and screen writers on the making of the minions from the official Despicable Me channel on YouTube. Looks like I am not the only one that thinks their BAAAHHH! is amusing.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

Warning Evil Minion — WARNING – Dangerous and Unpredictable

Watch the Purple Minion in the Mailroom

See more of the purple minions in the three minion shorts on the Despicable Me 2 Bonus. The Bonus version includes Puppy, Training Wheels and Panic in the Mailroom in the clip below.

Purple Minion Makeup and Hair

For more help in figuring out the make up and hair for the Evil Purple Minion see the separate page on just Purple Minion Make up and Hair for the Evil Minion.

The page has tips and hints for what products to get to add purple hair and makeup to your Evil Minion costume.

More Minion Costume pages to help you put together your own unique minion costume for Halloween. Watch for others coming so you can have fun picking your favorite silly minion.

Our Pinterest Board for DIY Purple (Evil) Minion Costume

To share our ideas and inspiration for making your own Purple Minion costume and to collect ideas from other Minion fans we have a Pinterest board especially for the DIY Purple (Evil) Minion Costume Ideas. Be sure to pop over to Pinterest and follow us for updates.

This board is a collection of Purple (Evil) Minion images that inspired the costume, hair and makeup along with more creative ideas for DIY fun from drawings to food with the evil minion.

Follow The Costume Detective’s board DIY Purple (Evil) Minion Costume Ideas on Pinterest.

Costume Breakdown History

This costume breakdown tutorial was originally featured as the Make a Purple Evil Minion Costume lens originally on Squidoo now on HubPages. Minion Images from Despicable Me on Facebook.