Halloween 2026: When to Order If You Want Armor on October 31
Halloween 2026 is Saturday, October 31. Parties, contests, porches, the works. Processing doesn't care that you found a better chest plate reference on October 12.
Back in June we published a guide on turning a kit into a Halloween costume. That piece covers the scope decisions: weather, layering, why a finished helmet and a coat beats a half-painted full suit still sitting in your garage on the 30th. This one isn't that piece. This one is the calendar.
If you want armor on your body that Saturday, here's what we can actually get done from here.
Four weeks versus the long builds
Most of what we ship runs on a 4-week processing timeline: unassembled NCR Veteran Ranger kits, Trooper pieces, combat armor, helmets, individual plates. Four weeks gets you a box, not a porch-ready costume. You still have to open it, dry-fit, glue, prime, and let the paint cure before you walk a sidewalk in it.
The long aisle is 10+ weeks: Legion armor, any power armor suit, and any fully assembled Ranger. Those carry theatrical detailing, paint, and lens work, and they're closer to commissioned pieces than off-the-shelf kits. October landing on a Saturday doesn't turn a 10-week build into a 4-week one.
Rush is $120, non-refundable, and ships within a week. It works on a 4-week piece. It will not move a T-51B or a fully assembled Ranger any faster. Freight starts once we finish processing; your build time starts once the box is in your hands. Heat in the garage, a strap that fails two hours in, a primer that stays tacky on the workbench: that part's on you, and no rush fee touches it.
The 4-week and 10+ week numbers above are our processing time, not a delivery date. That's the part we control. Once a box leaves our workshop, carrier transit adds days on top, and how fast it gets to your porch is out of our hands.
The 10+ week Halloween window already closed
Ten weeks before October 31 was Saturday, August 22. That mark is already behind us. A Legion kit, a power armor suit, or a fully assembled Ranger ordered today is already pointing at late October for processing alone, before a box hits a truck, before a strap sits wrong, before anyone talks about a second paint pass.
If you wanted one of those on your body Halloween night, you needed to order earlier than this. A T-51B full suit, a Centurion kit, or a fully assembled Ranger is a later-season buy now, and rush won't move any of them.
If you already ordered one, you already know you're in a late-October or later conversation, and that's fine. Plan a 4-week piece as your Halloween wear and let the bigger suit be the winter project. A helmet riding in the car footwell on the way to a party beats a full suit that never left the crate.
Labor Day week: September 3 through September 8
The Labor Day 20% goes live Thursday, September 3. Dragon Con in Atlanta runs the same stretch, Thursday the 3rd through Monday the 7th, coming up fast and a different problem than Halloween. We'll get to it below.
This Labor Day week is the last comfortable window if you actually want to build a 4-week kit, not just own a box. Order here and processing can wrap in early October, which still leaves nights to trim, strap, prime, and paint before the 31st. That's the cart we'd put on a workbench:
- An unassembled Veteran Ranger kit, if you follow the Ranger build guide and you're not writing yourself a custom weathering novel on October 28
- A Ranger helmet plus a coat you already own
- Combat armor as a full set, or as individual pieces (forearms, leggings, combat helmet) if you want something you can drop when the night gets cold
- Trooper pieces: helmet V2 and chest
This is also the only discount that shares a calendar page with Halloween in this piece: 20% off, Labor Day week, USA-made thermoformed ABS. It's not a month of Halloween pricing, it's one week.
Not sure whether to buy a kit or something already finished? We wrote a full breakdown on that decision. Finished doesn't mean faster if the finished SKU is a 10+ week Ranger.
Two more dates worth knowing: NYCC runs October 8 through 11 at the Javits Center, and LA Comic Con sits October 30 through November 1, the same weekend as Halloween night. If you order during Labor Day week, that same 4-week kit can double as your NYCC piece with a wear-test before Halloween. Neither con is a reason to grab a 10+ week suit and hope.
Someone will message us this week asking for a full suit in time for Dragon Con. That suit is not arriving for this con. Rush-eligible for Atlanta means chest plates, masks and helmets, and combat pieces, and even those are a maybe, not a Thursday badge-pickup promise. Halloween is the longer runway here. Labor Day week is where the two dates overlap.
Mid-September: roughly September 9 through 21
A small 4-week build is still realistic in this window. One helmet. One chest. Combat pieces you can paint in a week once they land.
Our Halloween ads should be live by now, Ranger chest first, then Trooper. The ads are a reminder, not a shortcut; the kit still takes four weeks.
A full Ranger with full weathering, worn for the first time on October 31, is a stretch unless you're unusually fast and willing to skip the clear-coat luxury. A tacky clear coat on October 30 is how you spend Saturday night peeling plastic off a porch step instead of handing out candy in it.
Cut scope the day you click checkout. Helmet plus clothes, or chest plus a jacket. Our June Halloween piece already said it, and it's still true: a finished helmet alone beats an unfinished full suit.
Late September into the first days of October
Four weeks before October 31 is October 3. We've watched people order October 1, get a box the week of the 31st, and try to wear raw ABS with a coat thrown over it. That's a maybe, not a build.
Rush is still on the table for a 4-week item if you're already in this window: $120, non-refundable, ships within a week. That's a real option for a helmet or a single plate you can strap and wear with almost no paint time. Late September and early October rush is that conversation, not a full-suit conversation. After the first week of October, even rush is a helmet-only conversation.
What to buy if you're starting from zero
The Ranger chest is the first Halloween SKU we push, then Trooper. A Ranger or Trooper helmet still photographs well on its own if that's all the time you have. Add a torso piece only if you still have Labor Day week or the front half of mid-September in front of you: Trooper chest, Veteran Ranger chest, or the back panel if you already own the chest. Combat armor is a solid pick if you want modular pieces you can stop wearing when the night gets cold; start with the combat armor build guide.
We're a father-and-son shop that started in a Florida garage, thermoforming ABS out of a US workshop. What we ship is unassembled DIY armor and prop kits inspired by post-apocalyptic games like Fallout: raw pieces you glue, paint, and strap yourself.
The 10+ week aisle is a winter project at this point in the calendar. If Halloween creative from us shows up in early or mid-September, take it as a nudge to order a 4-week kit now while there's still time to build, not as a signal that a Halloween sale is running all month.
Saturday night weather, not a paint panic
A Saturday Halloween is a full-weekend night. ABS handles a damp October sidewalk better than foam does, and it holds up to a paint job you rushed on Thursday so you could get a tote into the car better than foam does too. Follow our ABS painting guide either way.
Wear-test before the 31st using the same two-hour rule from our convention survival guide. Walk in it, sit in it, eat something in it. Note the strap that loosens. Fix it at home, not on a porch with a bowl of candy in your other hand.
Pack the armor afterward like you want it around next year; our storage and transport guide covers that. Clean it before it goes into a bin using our clean-and-maintain guide.
Straps showing through a bodysuit is a separate problem, and a fixable one. If you get that far before the 31st, our guides on attaching armor without visible straps and on contact cement versus epoxy cover it. Just don't start that experiment on October 30.
Our how-to-scope-a-Halloween-costume piece has been live since June, and the advice in it hasn't changed. The dates were the part that was missing, and now you have those too.
Order the 4-week kit while the Labor Day 20% is up, or order something small in mid-September and cut scope to fit. Ask us about a listing before you pay; we'll give you the unfun answer first if that's the honest one.
Browse the shop, and if a listing looks like a 10+ week item and you need it for Saturday night, message us with the SKU before you check out. Follow @XposedDesignsLLC on Instagram for the Halloween pieces as they go up.