Winged Demon How-To

Here’s the finished result of making my winged demon (or reaper).

The best part of having this haunted house is coming up with and building the new props each year.  A few years ago, I had made this guy with a broken, cheap blow mold skeleton from Spirit Halloween Stores.  Both legs and one arm had broken off.  So for a few dollars, I had bought the wings (part of the Wicked Fairies Costume Collection) and the black fabric and I made the first version of this guy, Demon 1.0 you could say.

He’s served his purpose these past few years, so we wanted to update his look and add something new.  We added red LED lights in the eyes to give him a sinister look.  I also added another layer of black gauze and repositioned the existing black cloth to look more like clothing.  No one wants to see a naked demon, now do they?

First things first, making the actual demon from a cheap skeleton.  Step 1:  Determine if you want him to have legs or not.  In our case, since the legs had already broken off, we decided they were not needed.  I had to repair the broken arm with hot glue (lots and lots of hot glue).  Now instead of both arms dangling freely, one one is able to.  The other has a fair amount of glue holding the arm into the shoulder socket, and then a fair amount more glue holding the elbow joint together.  Step 2: Apply the cloth and gauze to the skeleton.  I glued pieces to the top of his head to make it look like he is wearing a hooded garment.  Use your imagination and as much cloth and gauze as you want.  Step 3:  The wings are for an adult to wear.  They are from the Wicked Fairies line (I think).  They go onto a person via straps that come over the shoulder and wear similar to that of backpack straps.  I simply put them on over the “clothed” skeleton body as if I were dressing a person.  You can see the straps going across his chest in the picture below. You may have to readjust the clothing around the wings to make them work, but you get the idea….

Step 4:   Add the hanging wires.  To hang the demon, we took picture wire, made a loop to go around the neck portion of the spine, pushing the ends of the picture wire through the layers of cloth and out the back.  We also added another loop in the same fashion around the middle section of the spine, just above the pelvis.  We can then adjust the angle at which he hangs, depending on high high up we hang him.  This also gives him more stability and doesn’t let him twist or spin.  Step 5:  The Eyes.  I cut a hole in the back of the skull large enough to get a hand inside.  We bought LED lights and a battery cap (9 volt) at Radio Shack.  I made slits in the eye sockets where I wanted the eyes to be, pushed the LED lights through the slits, connected the battery cap to the lights, and Demon 2.0 is done!

I know I went through the instructions pretty fast, but there really isn’t much to this prop.  It’s amazingly simple to make with just a couple of hours worth of time and maybe $50.  Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about the how-to.

If You Build It, They Will Come…..

View Full Album

All the plastic has now been hung and we are ready to start hanging and refurbishing the old props.  We’ve purchased most of what we need for what we are now calling “The Butcher’s Chamber” – aka “The Intestines Mobile”.  On it’s way to the house as we speak are several pieces from BuyCostumes.com to complete the Butcher’s Chamber.  Last night we took a trip into or local Spirit Halloween Store (yeah, we have one in town now – no more trips to Stockton or Modesto!) and ended up spending $75 in more props (an arm, leg, hand and foot).

Click on the pictures above to see the progress with the plastic.  I’m working on a how-to to make a winged demon (or reaper) from a cheap, broken plastic blow mold skeleton from Spirit.  As soon as I get that completed, I’ll post it for y’all to give it a try!  Happy Haunting until next time!

Let the Construction Begin…

We’ve had the plan of what we want to do this year for the haunted house for a few week now.  We’ve gone looking through every store here in town to get ideas for new props or for ways to improve those we’ve already made.  Now it’s time to start putting all these together, roll up our sleeves, and get to work!  So yesterday, we spent the day cleaning out the garage.  Not my idea of fun, but it needs to be done in order to have the haunted house, I know…..

After a trip to our local dump, the garage was spiffy and neat and ready for the blackout plastic to be hung.  As you can see in the pictures, we’ve got most of the outside walls covered, with the exception of the garage door and the water heater.  We’ll cover the garage door today after we take the garbage cans out and into the backyard, and the water heater will have to wait until Halloween night as we don’t want to block it off right now because of ventilation reasons.

So the plan for today is to finish off the outside walls, hang the interior walls, and start setting up the masterpiece of the house this year, the ‘Intestine Mobile’.  We need to make sure that we have plenty of room for what we want to do. 

This is when it starts getting fun!  Props start going up.  New ones get made.  And we can start to get a clear vision of what the haunt is going to look like.  As weird as it seems, after a certain point, the haunt starts to really develop on it’s own.

More pics to come once we get more done.  Stay tuned….