Thread: Rotted Talking Head

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This is the first time I am posting, uploading pics, starting a thread and documenting a build. What could go wrong right?

For some reason I have always been fascinated by skulls and mummy heads in the movies. They seem to get more and more realistic. I became seriously intrigued whenever Spielberg used heads and mummy corpses in his movies. The store bought ones are cool but they lack the detail I took note of in the movies. So, I thought I would try to do it on my own. Since I wanted this head to go on display in my haunt I wanted it to do more than just sit there like a rock. I'm going to make it talk to the TOTs. It will have a demonic voice projecting from it.

Credit goes to skullkit.com for giving me the sense I really could do this. Thanks for getting me into trouble.

If you want to do this you'll need some stuff and instead of letting you just take a guess as to what that might be here is a list. I didn't put everything in there because some of the items are just things I have around for any project, and I figure you have them too (dremel, soldering iron, etc).

Get:
Lindberg Skull $20.
Wood Stain.
LEDs, All Electronics Blue Oval $1.
Speaker, 5.25 inch, All Electronics $8.
Latex $14 Motion Picture F/X Company, Special Effects Makeup Supplies - MonsterClub.com
Acrylic artists paints $7-$14 a tube, Daler Rowney System 3.
Teeth, $6 set, Uhler.
Cotton balls, $2.

Whatever else you may need to do the job.

Get your head and stain it.

Start by wiping down your skull with alcohol to rid it of finger prints, oils etc. Then slather your stain of choice all over all parts of the skull

This isn't in order because I started to take the photos after I was already starting the work on Fred the Head.

The teeth are actual denture teeth meant for humans. I think they add something to the overall look. The shade is 81, I think. I will go darker next time. I built up wax gums from the wax that lined the trays the teeth came in. I then pressed the teeth into the wax. I removed the teeth I wanted to and then used the acrylic nails kit (not mentioned above $6) to cement the teeth into the upper and lower jaw. I cemented them in from behind. Afterward, I removed as much of the wax as possible. I wound up with some under the teeth but the rest came off eventually.

Ok, the pics are difficult for me to figure out.

Anyway, I now drilled one hole in each eye socket. BUT, I drilled the hole in the top FRONT of each socket. I really like the lit up eyes on many skulls but I think seeing the bulb or LED in the back of the socket takes away from the effect. So I mounted my LEDs right up front in the top of the socket! (Head slap, stupid me) You'll see why in a bit. (I was experimenting... and it worked!)

In the pic the LEDs are just sticking straight down. Put a little patch of masking tape on the very end of the LEDs and bend them back flush into the eye socket so they are flush along the roof of the socket.

Here is maybe a better shot of the LEDs in the front top of the socket. This is before the patch of tape on the tip and before bending them up to the top of the socket.

Here you can see the brain pan above the eyes. The leads for the LEDs are sticking up. I then hot glue the leads so there are no leaks and so the lights won't move and short out. I only want to do this once per head.

LED leads hot glued in.

I then soldered and hot glued the LED leads to wires which go to a double AA battery pack.

If you note, the wires are also hot glued down into place so that they don't get up to no good later on, or even buzz.