Thread: Hollow Men advice

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Hello, everyone. I'm looking for a few suggestions on the best way to accomplish my yard's theme this year: CULTISTS.

This will include, but will not be limited to: One custom built sacrificial altar, one chained and helpless victim, a bunch of cemetery-style fencing, and maybe a few Lovecraft inspired pillars here and there if I have time to make them. And, most importantly, four hooded cloak-wearing cultists.

This is specifically where I'm looking for a few suggestions. I intend for these cultists to be completely hollow. I plan on using wire to get the basic humanoid shape, maybe some pvc pipe attached to a weighted base for reinforcement, and then draping a shoddily made robe over the whole thing. However, I would like to stiffen the fabric.

I've considered all the usual suspects. Starch, "Stiffy". Et cetera. Possibly even Bondo or wallpaper adhesive.

However, due to my own inexperience when it concerns the humid weather in my corner of the world, I am unsure of my best option.

I spent weeks putting together a life-size zombie prop last year, and was extremely disappointed when he started to mold and wilt, despite having applied several coats of sealant on him. I mean, sure, the mold certainly added to his overall disgusting demeanour.... but I ended up throwing him away after Halloween! Weeks of effort, down the drain.

Actually, I stuck him in the toilet of an abandoned building, in the hopes of scaring the giblets off of some young hoodlum.... but I digress.

Help me, fellow haunters! I am at a complete loss on how to deal with this "hot, humid" stuff. I am completely at your mercy.

I wish I could help, but I don't have that kind of problem. My biggest concern is making props sturdy enough to stand up to the eight inches of snow we often get in the weeks proceeding Halloween. Could you, maybe, shellac the robes? That ought to add stiffness as well as protection from humidity, but it might make them shiny. Sorry, Hob. I hope someone has a better tip for you than I.

Love the name. Love the idea.

You might already be aware of this, but there are some great phrases you can use within the poem, I've always wanted to explore it further...any time you can base a prop on TS Eliot is just icing on the cake.

The Hollow Men

1925

Mistah Kurtz- he dead.

The Hollow Men

A penny for the Old Guy

I
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

One thing I have used in the past that worked quite well was...garage floor epoxy...

I was painting after, so can't remember if it was shiny before painting or not.

I have had good luck with chicken wire covered with burlap brushed over with Elmers all purpose glue. You will need a PVC pipe shell or wire mannequin frame to hold up the weight. The glue dries clear in about 4 hours (depending upon how much glue you use and the humidity) and the burlap can be shaped somewhat after an hour. Spray or paint black. Let dry, then lacquer the whole project with clear spray shellac. I made a hollow tree that has lasted me three years outdoors because I couldn't fit it in the shed.

Thanks to everyone, for the suggestions! They're all quite good! And all of them are fresh ideas.

Although, I must admit, all of the suggestions are ones I would be unfamiliar with using. Well, aside from Elmer's, though I probably would have never thought to use Elmer's glue in this fashion Now, from what I've looked into, the shellac option seems to be the best value, overall. It looks as if you can get a three pound bucket of the stuff for around seven dollars. The floor epoxy seems to average about twenty something for the same size bucket.

My main concern is making sure that the cloaks maintain a very obvious cloth look, despite being hardened and sealed from the elements. Using burlap would help avoid this problem, however, I already picked up a huge roll of some awesome fabric a few days ago. It's not nearly as obviously-woven as burlap, but it's still quite nice looking. So, this being said, would any of the above options conceal the texture of the fabric too much?

Oh! And thank you, UnOrthodOx! I was not thinking of that poem at all when I decided to call my future creations "Hollow Men". However, I now wonder if some part of my subconscious was....

Maybe now to find some rat's feet and broken glass sound effects....

Wow... do I feel your pain! When I did my Jeepers Creepers figure, the felt hat he wears drove me nuts! It would look great all day and night, then I would wake up and it would be curled up and distorted every which way. I would iron it flat again, and even soaked it with waterproofing agents, but that Florida dew would get to it every morning. I finally had to sew a black wire coathangar all the way around the brim to maintain the shape.

I was going to use bedsheets for the fabric to make the wings, but figured between rain and dew they would get too heavy and sag. My solution was to use polyester fabric shower curtains. They flow and move like any other cloth, but they are 100% waterproof, lightweight, and each one cost like $9. The only downside is the fabric is shiny, so I sprayed them with flat brown and tan camouflage paint from Home Depot. This gave them the perfect look and enabled us to draw on the veins and arteries much easier.

Polyester shower curtains! Very clever idea, Bruzilla. I might even be able to find some slightly used, at a second hand shop. Not that eight dollars is a terribly high price to pay for something more weather resistant than burlap... but still. Every penny I pinch, means I can spend that much more on Halloween overall :P

Ah, but I do find myself missing the cool, crisp autumn weather found in the New England area. I also find myself grumbling about how I wouldn't have these humidity/mold issues there, either....

In any case, I've started forming the chicken wire into a basic hood-and-shoulders shape today. I also perused one of my local hardware stores. It seems there is a slight price increase on shellac in the South. Despite seeing it online for about seven dollars, locally it goes for thirty four.

Slight price increase....

Anyway. I found a fairly good size jug of Elmer's for about fourteen. I may end up going that route after all!

be careful though elmers glue is water soluble

Right-o. Humidity equals moisture, and Elmer's is water soluble. Argh. So, basically, if I were to use Elmer's... I would need to buy a secondary sealant anyway, no matter how I went about it. In which case, it will probably be a better value overall to just start off with one of the other sealants in the first place. Seeing as shellac is a bit pricey here, maybe floor epoxy might be the best choice. At least that was reasonably priced at the store.

Thanks again for all the feedback, everybody.

I will post photos of my progress, if anyone is interested. Unless things end up poorly, that is. Then I will simply hang my head in shame and go back to the drawing board