The Lost

I read about this prop idea last year on Pumpkinrot's What's Brewing blog, and kind of had the idea stuck in head since then, so I had to build it. It's about 3'10" tall, and resembles a small child. I think I may put a few pieces of candy on the ground in front of it to make it appear that the child may have spilled them, or maybe put a couple of hands, fingers, etc. in its bucket. My hopes are that some concerned parent will lean down to help this child and realize that this is no ordinary kid. This doesn't really go with the rest of my setup this year, it's just something I had been wanting to build since I read about it.

Thanks, Rot, for this awesome prop idea.




Rot's Original Post

Cloaked Ghost Step By Step

When I first saw Pumpkinrot's Cloaked Ghost, I knew that I had to build one. Or two... or three. Since then, I have gotten a great response from the two I built and lots of questions about how I did it. So... here are a few pictures I took along the way, and a brief description of how I made them. I don't know how Rot made his, but I really owe him credit for the idea for this prop that I put my own spin on.


I started with a piece of 1 and 1/4" pvc pipe that was probably close to 5 feet long. The little device it is standing on is a thing I made to put my tombstones on while I was painting them, that I have found comes in handy for several other uses. I went ahead and painted this pole black since I didn't want it visible and I figured this would be the easiest time to paint it.



Next I made a piece for the shoulders out of a 1X2 and arms out of 1X2's as well. The one arm has a piece of pvc pipe for the forearm... I'm not sure why I did that. I might have run out of 1X2's. I also made a hood out of chicken wire and used a wire coat hanger along the front edge to give it more support. My plan was to use monster mud covered burlap over this so I needed all the support I could get, as that stuff can be rather heavy.



I made the hands out of two different sizes of glue sticks that were cut and glued back together. I could have done this a lot simpler, but I had just learned this method and wanted to try it out. These turned out to be really strong, especially after I covered them in construction adhesive and dipped them in liquid latex for extra support.



Here is what the ghost was looking like after the monster mud covered burlap was added to the hood. I had to use another piece of wood to hold up the front of the hood while this was drying, as it kept wanting to fall and droop down too much in the front. I ran the wire to power the lantern (that this ghost would later hold) up the main pole and down the raised arm. At this point I had also dyed some cheesecloth a tan color, and wrapped the main pole with it to make it less visible in the finished product.


Here is the ghost, nearly completed with all the rest of the cheesecloth draped on it. I used some spray on glue as I layered the cheesecloth on to keep it from blowing away in the wind... this seemed to work really well. I shredded the ends of the cheesecloth and made some long stringy pieces to hang down and blow in the breeze. I tried to get rid of any "straight lines" such as the ends of the cloth or anywhere it may have folded over. I felt that any of these that were visible would take away from the creepiness factor. I painted everything inside the hood black at this point also, so that nothing would be visible inside the hood. This was what I liked most about this prop, the mystery of what was inside that darkened hood, which was nothing. I also added a Skull and Bone style flickering lantern to one hand.


Here was the finished product. Even though this picture was photoshopped a tad, the center pole becomes pretty much invisible at night and blends in with the other pieces that hang down. I painted the bottom of this black, up about a foot or so and blended it back into the tan color, which makes it even less visible. This is what gives it that "hovering" look. To stand the ghost up, I drove a five foot piece of conduit into the ground about two feet, which left three feet out of the ground for all of you mathematicians, and then slid the whole assembly onto that.

Some things I might have done differently if I were to build these again.... I might have used a paper mache material for the hood instead of monster mud, as this would have been much lighter, although the monster mud will hold up better in all types of weather (such as rain). I probably would use the thicker walled (schedule 40 I think it is called) pvc pipe, which would be stronger than the thin walled stuff I used. I didn't have any problems with it, I just like to be on the safe side. I think that about covers it, but if I left anything out feel free to ask... I'm sure there was something.

The Inspiration... Pumpkinrot's Cloaked Ghost


Photo From Pumpkinrot.com

Haunting

At the time, I didn't notice that there was a UPC code or something hanging off of the extension cord that goes to this prop. I guess I lose major scare points for that one. I'm going outside to correct this grave error immediately....