Thread: Giant props

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I want to make a pair of giant skeleton hands (perhaps pose-able). I need them to be about 4 foot long. I want them to hang from the edge of my roof along with a giant skeleton head (I already know where to get that, cheap). I was thinking about forming them using white kitchen bags, but as things often do, they work better in my head than in real life.

I'm thinking kinda like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ultratr...0327/lightbox/

I'd like to be able to use them over and over again, but without using too much space in my garage for storage.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

PVC pipes, great stuff foam and/or paper maché would be my suggestion. You would build the skeleton out of PVC/tape, use great stuff to create the palm part of the hand, and then either great stuff or paper maché (tape up newspaper or plastic bags to "flesh" out the fingers, then paper maché over that for a smoother look.

A how-to that will help explain how to:

http://www.scaryguys.com/bighand.htm

If you've never used great stuff... a few tips:

• It comes out looking like intestines (just a fun fact )
• It will stick to EVERYTHING. Wear gloves (plastic or even medical supply ones) and your work surface should be covered in plastic (garbage bags or something)
• If you get it on bare skin, not much will get it off - you will have to wait several weeks for it to come off on it's own
• do it outside, in a place where it won't be a horror to clean up
• it will ruin clothes
• It expands a bunch... but it is possible work it after about 15 minutes to push it into shapes you want (but use pieces of cardboard or gloved hands...)

Bend heated 1/2" PVC or conduit and cover with foam noodles. Use foam board for the palm area. Sculpt and paint as needed.

That's what we did for our spider legs and it worked great. We took 2 10ft pieces of conduit and covered them with two different sizes of noodles. I used tape to tighten them in sections to make them more tapered.

Check out my photos in my profile.

Hi Smaggy, If you decide on using PVC and you definitely want to make your hands poseable, I might be able to help you out.



Our Spider Joints might work well for your application.

D.

Originally Posted by Diabolik

Hi Smaggy, If you decide on using PVC and you definitely want to make your hands poseable, I might be able to help you out.



Our Spider Joints might work well for your application.

D.

Nice, where do you get those? I haven't seen them before. Wish I had those when I made mine last year. Below are the hands I made last year for the same effect.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rpickering/6062489849/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rpickering/6063037030/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rpickering/5138205956/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rpickering/5138206030/

Looking at them now I don't like them as much as I did last year. Think I need to do some more work on them!

This is a really good idea. You can cover the joints with Great Stuff to hide the joint and develop a knuckle. Then when you want to change the pose, just remove the foam from the joint, re-position the hand, and spray new foam over the joint. Nice.

Those are cool pictures! That's what I want to do, but have one hand pointing accusingly. Mine'll be a pirate skeleton and I'll probably pipe music and sound effects from the Caribbean ride.