Thread: My Modified Stalkabout Costume Progress - Mort the Meat Man - WIP 2011

Tweet

After an on and off month of collecting supplies and general procrastination I finally got started on my costume for this year. My idea was inspired by Kevin's Phenomenal Body Bag costume.



Kevin's the same guy responsible for the equally impressive Jumbo the Clown and Jester costumes as well. He's got some oversized costume construction how to at his site www.baldbrain.com so if you've never been there I suggest you check it out!

Looking for further inspiration some YouTube searches (as well as these forums) lead me to Gore Galore's (www.gore-galore.com) line of stalkabouts. I was immediately drawn to the Zombie Lurker costume.. Incredibly impressive to say the least. I want to see one close up just so I can see how they achieve that incredible head movement.



This is when the gears started turning.. I wanted to expand on Kevin's Body Bag by modifying it a bit and combining it with Gore Galore's Zombie Lurker. Of course, the Gore Galore stuff is a bit out of my price range so I was gonna have to get a bit creative. So, enough with the intros... Off we go..

I started with one of Kevin's progress pics and sketched out my idea.



I modified his conduit brace and support a bit since I needed a bit more mobility to move the arms, head, etc. A few process pics of the support, my ladder stand-in, and the basic pvc frame.






I wanted some head movement so I rigged up a very basic pvc pivot. I slid a 3/4" to 1/2" pvc T joint over a 1/2" pvc form that I then pvc glued into the frames spine.





Added a spare styro head I had laying around to give him a bit of personality.. I think I'll name him Mort.



Mort's head had a natural sway when I would walk but I wanted a bit of control as well. Using some nylon twine and some eye hooks I rigged up a bargain basement control system. By drilling through the neck pvc I attached the twine and ran it through eye hooks fastened under his shoulders and attached some D rings to the end of them. Pull down on left and it swings left. On right, swings right. Easy enough and it suits my purposes.



The basic skelly was done so now to give Mort a bit more personality. I drew up a goofy looking skull and carved it out of 5 pieces of 2" thick pink foam glued together. Maybe a bit of overkill on the size of the skull but what the hell, it's only once a year.. Still need to do some detail work and still deciding what direction to go on the eyes. Was thinking big and buggy but found some cheap purple battery powered LED lights so might recess those in. Jury is still out at the moment. Some pics of the drawing to rough carve and Mort getting a suitable (but sightless) head.






With the head roughed out, I went to work on the hands. 2" inch pink foam cut to monster size. I ran 12 gauge wires through the fingers and shaped them to look a bit more like finger bones and a little less like marshmallows. Taped them into their desired positions and they are ready for their paper mache top coat. I really like the look of the right hand. The left not as much but I had to form a fist to hold the axe / bone saw Mort will carry. The right is so much more dynamic. I then cut the pvc forearms to length, set them into the hands.





Right hand ready for paper mache



It looks like I reached my max image attachment quota for this post. I should have known, I do tend to ramble a bit. But anyway, more pics to follow as they become available. Mort needs his exposure. Or at least that's what he keeps telling me anyway. :P

the left hand pic and the some pics of Mort's current state.

Left hand ready for some clobberin' time..



Mort

That's really cool.

More progress..

Mort's head gets some redesigning. Eyebrows get a beefed up a bit, I decided to sink the eye sockets in contrast to the my early bug eye sketch. I'm pretty happy with the results. I gave him more pronounced cheekbones and a nosejob. Oh, yeah, I decided he needed to suffer some massive head trauma and cracked his skull to leave his brain exposed. As a plastic surgeon I would be top notch barring the last part..









New an improved Mort. I think he looks a bit leaner and a lot less goofy. Also, put in his placeholder teeth until I can carve some real ones up. Oh, yeah, I wanted to light his eyes up so found some cheap LED flashlights and sunk them into the back of his head. As if the head trauma wasn't already bad enough I'm sinking flashlights into his brain. Poor Mort..





And what good is Mort without a weapon? Found a pretty cool pic of a gruesome axe / bonesaw and blew it up to the size I wanted. I transfered that over to some foamcore sheets, shaped the blades, and taped them together to form a pretty close facsimile. I slopily coated it with some wood filler for texture and added a bunch of screws and wire. Finally, I wrapped the handle in rope to finish the look. All I need now is a paint job.

Mort is now armed..









More to come as pics become available..

Just a quick update with a colored pencil sketch I drew up of Mort. Still having a real hard time describing what exactly I'm doing this year when people ask. Well, here is the concept sketch..



My head will be sticking out of Morts back with a noose around my neck. I'll be building an armless severed torso (with moving exposed spine) out of pink foam, great stuff, chicken bones and a wooden snake. Still building up the the shoulders out of foam and great stuff so I'll be able to start working on clothes. Got a few yards of black and brown fabric as well as some green/grey freaky fabric to piece together his wardrobe. He's still on the verge of coming together and once he does I'll be back with some updates.

More to come..

More status on the build.. If anyone out there has any tips or comments feel free to let me know. I'm just sort of winging it here. :P

With Mort's head and hands ready for mache I decided to bulk up his shoulders. Using some styrofoam I had on hand from a mower purchase earlier this year (I knew it would come in handy someday!) I double layered and wrapped it in tape. Still having some empty spaces to fill I turned to Great Stuff. Personally, it's the first time I've used it (I know, Halloween blasphemy!) so wasn't quite sure what to expect. Filled the spaces okay but made a great hunchback. Left that to dry before some shaping cleanup and went to work on the axe.



The oh so intimidating oatmeal color has been replaced by a basecoat of black before getting a drybrush of silver on the blade and dark brown on the handle and misc rope details. Wanting to go for an older rustier look, I hit the blade with a rather heavy handed drybrush of orange. My first attempt at aging a blade so might ease up a bit on the orange on future props.. The picture makes it look much more orange and a lot less rusty to me. But of course, that's nothing a heavy dose of blood spatter can't fix.









Hopefully I can get the paper mache work on Mort's head and hands done this weekend before tackling his wardrobe. How hard can it be to throw together something made out of random pieces of burlap, linen, and freaky fabric? Let's see Tyra Banks do that..

More to come..

Oh hells yeah! That's brilliant! I can't wait to see as Mort continues to take shape.

Frigg'n awesome!

Mort is awesome!

Thanks for the compliments! Coming from this group that's an incredible honor. Out doing a dry run for the Halloween festivities planned but will be back on the horse tomorrow. Hopefully he can hit paint and torso sculpt by next weekend.