Thread: I've started my stalkabout

Tweet

OK, I finally got to do a little more work on it this weekend. I've been out of town and then an oak tree limb fell through the roof of my workshop so I've gotten a little behind. I've cut out the stand for it but haven't glued it yet, finished the arms/shoulders, got a pair of skeleton gloves, and adjusted the head movement a little. I tried getting movement on the fingers and succeeded for about five minutes until the string was sheered off because of the angles it was having to be routed through. I might have to wait until next year to get them moving as they are trying my patience right now.

Looks like the sharp ends on the arms are cutting the lines. Have you thought about taking some of that black tubing and using that as a conduit around those areas to prevent the sharp parts from cutting the line? You might want to put some white duct tape on the end part of the hand for that sharp part. I hope that helps.

Looking good man. That shoulder joint should give you plenty of movement. Nice use of gutter pipe. Are the fingers just pvc pipe, or something softer?

Dionicia, the lines are run from the fingers, through the arm, and down the pvc pipe closest to the hand through a "T" joint. The line comes out of the pvc through holes I drilled that lined up with my fingers. I then tied the ends to key rings. I would grab the pvc closest to the elbow and the key rings would line up with my fingers, making it easy to feel them with out seeing. The line is being cut where the string is coming through the pvc.

Sikntwizted, the fingers are some flexible irrigation pipe I bought at Lowes. The gutter pipe is fairly light and I like the room inside if I do run line through for the fingers. Plus, I already had it lying around.

Damn! great job so far, can wait to see the finished product.

U sir, are full of win.

Ok, I've got the shoulder pads complete. I need to get some velcro for the wig head as you can see in the video it is not secured yet. I don't know if this is the mask I will be using, it is just one I had laying around. The tubes hanging down from the mask is a little pump you fill with blood so that it flows down over the face of the mask. I haven't tested it to see how it looks. Other than the velcro I think I'm pretty much done with the structure of the costume. Now I have to find someone that can help me get some clothes on this reaper.











YouTube - Stalkabout costume 2

That's looking great!! I like the range of movement and the joints you've designed function realistically. The head movement is great too. My only comment would be the overall proportions. For the width of the shoulders and length of arms the head and hands need to be much bigger. I would ditch the wig head/mask and go for one of those giant foam skulls you can find around - they're about 2' tall and would look just about perfect on your body frame. The hands too should be bigger - I know you put a fair bit of work into the articulated hand and it looks like it would work perfectly - could you use those as a mock-up and scale the measurements up to make a larger version? Overall I really do think it looks great!! Looking forward to seeing your progress.

Liking the range of motion. The "nod" is always a good feature. Did you ever get that pinched finger line thing fixed? On the robe, just remember to have a piece of thin material that you can see through in front of your face. Some people use a small piece. I had a large V that ran down as a 6" strip. Looked like part of the design. The $3000 ones have a skull "pendant" that has the fabric as the eye sockets. My grandma made mine after she told me I was crazy and I cut the fabric and pinned it up. (She was actually impressed that I was able to do that with no help or a pattern).

Ever think of using airplane cable for the fingers???
1/16 is strong and light



-PB

Killer job on the framework and genius Idea on the pivot point on the head. I finished my stalk about last week after working out the bugs on the l.e.d.'s for the eyes and some extra speakers to make my voice changer loud. A soft backpack wasn't the right decision so I found an old army alice pack for dirt cheap at a military surplus store. It comes with a waist strap for added comfort.

One of the things I ran into on completion was mainly weight distribution. Depending on the extra weight from your costume and arms you may have to put extra weight at the bottom to counterbalance the sway effect up top. I went with a deluxe sized mask and used expanding foam to fill in the spaces in the mask. For hands I used the deluxe reacher arms and binded the joints with rubber hose making the arms free flowing. I bought a typical reaper robe slit the sides and tied in black bed sheets to add extra room. The robe came with a mesh vail that I used to velcro over a hole I cut in the front so I could see. Looks great so far... You'll have to post the final product.