Thread: Filling up my monster - With something other than the neighborhood children :)

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I have a question that I'm hoping one of you wonderful experts might be able to help me with.

I have started working on a prop that was originally loosely based on this guy:


What I'm working on now is the body. And this is what he is currently looking like:


As you can see here, he doesn't have any arms yet. He stands about 6.5 feet tall, and I'm using pvc pipes inside as support. He's mostly made out of chicken wire, and then the pvc I kinda sewed into the chicken wire at the hips using a thinner wire.


The stand that I made allows the pvc legs to be inserted and it holds the guy upright pretty well. However, at the moment, his head:
is quite heavy, so when I put it on the body as I do in the pic above, he starts to fall over. As soon as I'm certain that I'm done mucking around with the insides of the guy, I'm going to be putting at least 9 layers of paper mache on him, and then using sealers and all that too. But I'm not sure if that will actually help with the balancing problem.

The spine and legs in the pic above are set into holes that I drilled into the pvc pipe and then secured with silver tape. Since the "hips" pipe is secured to the outer chicken wire with wire, it sits in there pretty securely too, so I'm not all that worried about that. And since the head piece is so heavy, I added a wider piece of pvc pipe on top of the thinner one that was originally the spine just to add some strength so it wouldn't bow or bend under the weight. Now the spine doesn't bend, but it does still list either backwards or forwards as he's standing there. I'm not sure if it will change things once the body is rigid with the paper mache or not, since the head piece is also the shoulders and upper chest and that upper chest will rest against the lower paper mache'd chest while the pvc neck will be inserted into the spine. This way the weight should be distributed more evenly, I think.

So, I thought maybe I should fill him up with something to keep the spine completely straight up and down. I had originally thought I'd stuff him with newspaper, but now I'm wondering if maybe I should use some sort of foam filler or something like that? Anybody know what might work best to help keep him stiff and balanced? Or do you have any other suggestions to balance him?

Also, if I use one of those spray foam things, is there anything I need to keep in mind? In MacabreRob's don't blink tutorial, he showed that he'd used spray foam and it caused something to buckle, I want to make sure that doesn't happen, if I can avoid it, but I don't know what exactly he did to make it buckle like that.

So, there's my dilemma! Anybody got any advice for me! I'd really appreciate it if you do.

Happy Haunting!

A Couple of questions. What size PVC is that ? It looks awful thin. I rarely use anything less than 1 inch for my projects since it is much harder to make it bend or bow. I see you have all of the joints taped up. I assume there are T fittings under there ? You might want to run some self tapping screws through the joints to keep them from moving under the weight. If that tape lets go after you are done, you are going to have a problem on your hands. Also looking at your base. What did you use to fasthen the pipe to the base ? I'd want to make sure the whole thing doesn't topple under the weight of the head and paper mache.

Yeah I just moved up to 3/4 of an inch and now want to go to 1 inch. I would also say make the base larger.

One problem with making props here in Sweden is the lack of PVC. They only carry 16mm and 20mm thicknesses, which is like half inch and 3/4 inch. The next size up is like drain pipe size. They also have NO connectors of any kind here, no T's no elbows, NOTHING. And if you ask them to order them for you, they say they can't because the ONE distributor that they use does not carry them. *cough* Do I sound bitter? lol

So, the legs and the original spine of my guy here are half inch, and the hips section is 3/4 inch. Because I didn't have the luxury of T connectors, instead I drilled holes into the 3/4 inch hip piece and inserted the half inch pipes into those holes, and then taped them into place with really sturdy silver tape. I then slid another piece of 3/4 inch pvc over the spine piece to strengthen it.

The head has another 3/4inch piece that forms the neck, and that will slide over the remaining bit of the half inch sized spine pipe.


In this way, the 3/4 inch neck will rest against the 3/4 inch covering of the spine piece



And that will sit on top of the 3/4 inch hip piece, which is secured to the chicken wire with wire to hold it at the correct place in the form as well as provide a brace to keep the proper shape to the chicken wire.

As for the base, I glued two one inch thick boards together and then drilled holes in them and inserted two pieces of 3/4 inch pvc, about 6 inches long into the holes and secured them with hot glue.


The half inch pvc pipes I'm using as the skeleton's legs slide into those pieces and they do a pretty good job of keeping the whole thing standing up. Maybe I should reinforce the legs though the same way I did the spine... Not sure. I'm actually not sure how much weight the skeleton is actually going to need to bear... Because once it's paper mache'd it seems like shell will pretty much support itself, with the help of the chicken wire. But maybe I'm missing something and that's not the way it'll actually work?

use monster mud instead of paper mache for a heavier body.

Wish I could. That seems to be another rarity here. :P But thanks for the suggestion!

I don't actually want the body to be all that heavy... I just don't want it to tip over or lean to the front or back. Anybody else have any suggestions on how I could get it to stay standing up straight? Would filler make the difference?

You have it but there is a language barrier. In Sweden, it's called Spackle.

Ask your drywall supplier what is used for taping and filling of joints and filling nail/screw holes.

Mix one gallon of that with 5 gallons of paint and you have Monstermud.

Ahhh! Well that's good to know! Thanks Johan! Is there a particular type of paint I should mix it with? Latex or something?

Still, I'm not sure if that solves the balance issue. It just occurred to me now that if I pack newspaper really tightly around the spine to keep it straight and then go ahead and do the paper mache part, if he still leans, maybe I can fix that by adding in some actual feet, with more steadying support... Guess I'll just have to see what happens! I'd still appreciate any ideas you guys can come up with though as I might not be able to put my plan into action until tomorrow or something!

Are you from Sweden Johan?

Thanks for the help everybody!

Originally Posted by Johan

You have it but there is a language barrier. In Sweden, it's called Spackle.

Ask your drywall supplier what is used for taping and filling of joints and filling nail/screw holes.

Mix one gallon of that with 5 gallons of paint and you have Monstermud.

1:5 drywall to paint? I have read the opposite ratio other places. 5:1 drywall to paint. Which is it?

This site has the Monster Mud recipe if you are interested:

http://terrorsyndicate.com/demos_page_8.html