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.
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.
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