DIY Yellow Au Naturel Minion Costume Ideas

Minions All Natural (Au Naturel)
in the Days of the Dinosaur

The idea for an All Natural (au naturale or naturel), Yellow Minion costume (a slightly racer version of the minions) came to me after watching the promo trailers for the Minion Movie.

I was inspired to figure out Norbert’s seaweed and this early of minion costumes by the first trailer for the Minion Movie, showing the ancient yellow minions back in 65 million years ago, the time of the dinosaurs.

This natural look is how the minions looked when they lived 65 million years ago, long before the age of Gru or Scarlet Overkill.

The Au Natural minion costumes are among the very oldest versions of the Minions other than when they were single celled organisms.

You can see in the clip below from Illumination how the minions looked in the age of the dinosaurs. You will also discover minions have been on the planet far longer than we have and share the same goal “to serve the most despicable master around.”

The Au Naturel, Au Natural or Dinosaur-age Minion Costume

In 65 million B.C.E. the minions weren’t too worried about wearing clothes, except for perhaps Norbert, as we saw in the clip above, who forgot his seaweed skirt.

After the seaweed skirt, in this time of the dinosaurs the minions did wear several leaves tied up by vines front and back covering for their gender-less areas. We do know the future minions enjoy flashing their butts.

One aspect of the preview that I find to be very strange is that even in the age of the dinosaurs they still were wearing goggles. We can see their earliest protective eye covering are made from the leaves of tropical plants.

(The question of “Why are they wearing goggles?” is one that we tried to address in the How to Make Green Leaf Minion Goggles page.)

This yellow minion Au Naturel version (as seen in the Funko pop figure) could also be considered their dinosaur-age minion costume.

Making an Au Natural Minion Costume

Making a presentable bello yellow costume is pretty easy, you start with the basic ‘au natural’ or birthday suit look and then add in the extra accessories.

The items needed for a natural minion costume:

A full yellow body suit, or a yellow unitard, or yellow top and pants/leggings
Yellow face paint
Leaf modesty coverings or gender-region coverings
Vine belt
Leaf covered Minion Goggles
A BANANA (for a prop)

Once you have the yellow body suit, yellow unitard or top and pants/leggings (see the Bello Yellow Minion Costume for more ideas) you just need to make your own modesty leaf coverings and leaf-covered Minion Goggles.

Make Minion Modesty Leaf/Leaves Coverings

It is pretty easy to make the minion modesty belt leaf covering especially if you have access to banana or tropical leaves. I found a few artificial silk leaf options on Amazon that can be used to make your own gender-region coverings, whether as single leaves like the dinosaur minions or the seaweed version (like the more primordial minions).

All you need to do is to take one (or more) of the artificial leaves depending on the size and tie or attach (staple, sew, glue) the leaves to a green twine, leather or yarn cord. If you don’t know how to make a twisted yarn cord, see the helpful video tutorial below. Make sure you have the leaf coverings for both modesty regions in the front and the back.

Cut Out Green Paper or Felt Leaves

Since good artificial leaves that look like banana or long tropical leaves may be difficult to find, I created two leaf template that can be used to print out on green paper (cardstock or construction), or cut from green felt and then assemble into a modesty leaf covering, like the one worn by Kevin above.

Download the leaf template you like the best, adjust to the size that you want and print out or cut out. (Click on the leaf template to get the largest size for printing.)

To get the Minion Dinosaur costume effect you need to print out three leaves in the pattern of your choosing, six leaves if you plan to cover the backside.

Leaf Template modified from carlitos on Openclipart. Royalty Free Use.

Simple Leaf Template modified from laobc on Openclipart. Royalty Free Use.

After you have cut out your leaves and staples or glued them together, attach them to a twine, or twisted yarn cord to create the vine-like cording.

Make a Twisted Twine or Yarn Cord

If you have a bunch of green yarn or twine and want to make a thicker cord so it looks more like a vine, simply create a twisted cord. I.V. Anderson from the National Quilters Circle does a great job in demonstrating how to make a twisted cord.

For your Minion belt cord you might even want to use three different shades of green.

Make Minion Leaf Minion Goggles

Green Minion Goggles — Green Leaf Minion Goggles

The easiest way to make leaf goggles or tropical goggles is to simply get a pair of regular goggles Minion or glasses and then cover the frames and band straps with long natural or silk leaves.

The best type of leaves to use are banana leaves or Hawaiian Ti leaves but any other long natural leaves would work too.

Remember if you are using natural and not artificial or silk leaves, they will wither and brown with time, so you can’t make the goggle part of the costume too far in advance, or expect them to last for too long.

DIY Leaf-covered Minion Goggles

You can also make your own leaf-covered minion goggles can easily be made using old cardboard tubes as described in the How to Make Green Leaf Minion Goggles or the 5 Easy Ways to Make a Pair of Minion Goggles.

Start with the large postal tubes or mailing tubes for posters, or larger cardboard rings used to give stability to yarn balls.
Cut into 1.5 to 2 inch thicknesses to create large goggle lens frames.
Cover the rounds with green leaves, ribbon or strips of felt, foamie, cardstock, masking tape, Duck tape® or floral tape.
Staple or glue the two tubes together.
Attach green elastic with staples or hot glue on one side.

Make the goggles with two eyes, like Kevin’s instead of a single eye like Norbert’s. It will be easier for wearing and seeing out of the goggles.

Make Your Own Au Natural Minion Plushie

After you’ve made an Au Natural costume for yourself, try your hand at making an adorable Au Natural Minion Plushie by following CarmenPay’s YouTube tutorial on How To Make Au Natural Minion Plushie Tutorial.

Yellow Minions

If you’d rather make a more traditional minion costume, we have other pages for the original Despicable Me Minion costumes and the new (retro) Minion costumes from the Minion Movie.

You can also find several suggestions for doing your own minion make-up and hair and making your own minion goggles.

Our Pinterest Board for DIY Yellow Minion Costumes

You’ll find many of the ideas and inspiration for making your own yellow minion costume at the Pinterest board especially for the DIY Yellow Minion Costume Ideas and Fun. Be sure to follow us on Pinterest for updates and more minion fun.

Follow The Costume Detective’s board DIY Yellow Minion Costume Ideas and Fun on Pinterest.

This board is a collection of Yellow Minion images from Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2 and from the Minion Movie that inspired the various costume, DIY goggles, hair and makeup.

Minion Images from the Minions on Facebook.