Thread: Skeletons and Latex Questions!

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Hey Everyone!

Got three questions for ya :P

1. What's the cheapest place to buy Latex online since they stopped carrying it anywhere in my home town? E-bay looked shaky as well as Craig's list so I ended up buying it from amazon.com for $40 a gallon with $12.95 shipping :-/

2. I was curious what is best for painting Latex in highly movable places where Acrillic and other paints crack after a while. We are making life size corpses and usually airbrush them for detail. The paint on the skin in the movable joints dont last and sometimes becomes brittle. Would like to find the paints they use on Halloween masks that is extremely pliable.

3. I so dearly miss the Gemmy 78' Realistic Skeletons. We found them yearly at Menards. We have a total of 5 here and want more but they seem to have been discontinued Any thoughts where they can be found?

They looked like this:



When we are done with them....



any input would be most appreciated!

and this.....




As you can see, the dense foam resin they are made from is extremely customizable we like them over the Bluckys and the costly Buckys.

Wow! That's awesome! I'd love to have one of those!

For paint, I like to recommend FW Acrylic Artists Inks. It is an alcohol based ink that airbrushes fantastically! *Except for the white!!! The white has a lot of very thick pigment in it.* A little goes a long way, 10-25 drops of 90-99% rubbing alcohol to 2-3 drops FW.

FW inks make airbrushing a different experience. It dries nearly instantly! It layers well, as some colors are translucent and others opaque. It cleans up with rubbing alcohol (the cheapest you can find works great) and it doesn't mind a little, or a lot, of rain!

The FW goes on in such a thin layer that it doesn't chip off, but it isn't stretchy. For that you can use rubber cement based paint. I don't recommend it though. It is very toxic, and a pain to use! (But that's no problem in China! "Toxic-shmoxic! If it doesn't kill you instantly, it's OK!") Seriously, I will NEVER use rubber cement based paint again.
I have many props painted with FW that are several years old, and the paint hasn't chipped or cracked at all. It has excellent adherence.

You can usually find a few colors (three packs) at Michaels, more can be ordered from here. Art Supplies from Dick Blick Art Materials

Delvies plastics has latex for $36/gallon. Don't know what shipping to you would be, it's only $6 to me, ground.

Delvie's Plastics Inc.: Mold Making Rubber - Liquid Latex Rubber

Thanks a bunch you two, you've been very helpfull. I ended up buying latex off of Amazon.com from a company called creematex? or something. it was $40 a gallon and $9.95 shipping. $36 sounds better lol

gonna try those paints too!

Gosh...no one can get the skeletons though

I'd have to check, but I think our Menards has those skeletons. I wanna say they were upwards of $70 maybe though? If you can give me a day or so, I'll try to stop by & see if they still have them.

Originally Posted by Glyphen

Gosh...no one can get the skeletons though

There is one on ebay, but it ends in 4 hours and 55 minutes.

Gemmy 78" Skeleton Decor Halloween Prop - New - eBay (item 140267859497 end time Sep-23-08 16:36:15 PDT)

I contacted Gemmy today and they said they discontinued them in 2003. We would go to Menards the day after Halloween and pick em up for 25$ each, even the broken display ones. aah those were the days. I dunno if they are worth $70 a piece though :-/

I saw that one on E-bay for 9.99 starting bid but the sender wanted a minimum of $30 for shipping....seemed a little steep to me as they aren't that heavy. I haven't checked the bidding on it lately to see what it was up too.

I can't imagine Menards would have em anymore! I haven't seen them in two years. Don't make any special trips for me or nothing but if you happen to see them lemme know. If you do any after Halloween shopping and they are there you so should get some, let me know. I got 3 left myself in different states of disrepair that we are gonna corpse out for this year. I'm just looking on to next year now.

They aren't totally anatomically correct but they are huge! almost 6'6" tall. a little panty hose and some liquid latex and you got a awsome looking corpse thats carvable, dremel-able and paintable.