The Haunted Cauldron

I feel in love with the below inpsiration picture last year while searching the web, however did not love the size (14″) or the price of $80.00 dollars.  My goal was to have a Grim Reaper style wall sconce to hang above my family room fireplace for 2010. This is my soultion for a MUCH cheaper version.

 

Inspiration Piece

Started off with a super cheap 3ft blow mold skeleton I picked up last year for $6.50.

I love a good clearance.

I had to change the face from happy to a little more grim. I added paper towels soaked in black latex paint and glue inside the mouth (to fill the hole), on the check bones and around the eyes.

While face was drying, I painted the inside of the rib cage black and a small piece of scrap wood. The piece of wood will be used to support my wall mounting bracket later.

 

I was in luck, recently having picked-up dry cleaning I had a wire hanger in the house.

 

 

Run the entire length of the wire coat hanger through the shoulder blades. The extra length will become the arms and will support your Reapers robe later. See front view below:

Back view (remember it does not have to be perfect):

Now do the same at the hips. Drill holes directly through the pelvis.

Back view:

 

I drilled a hole in the end of each of the rest of the bones as seen in blow photos:

 

In order to keep his legs facing forward once wired up, I had to do a little more surgery on the thigh bone as seen below:

Below you will see the arm bones added to already formed wire coat hanger:

Since I could only find one wire coat hanger, I had to use heavy craft wire for the legs. This wire work out well to support the legs since there would be no added weight on the legs. Notice I used one very long continuous piece of wire (way more than I needed) in below photos:

Once I reached the end of the leg. I wired the foot on and gave it a little twist to secure in place.

All wired up and ready for his robe. Notice how the thiegh bones sit flush at the hip joints in below photo (this will help out more later in the design).

So I had to come up with a way to support him while I worked on him. My solution??? broom handle and flower pot. Hey it worked! I found an old king size mismatch pillowcase in my linen closet and cut the sewed seams off. I used push pins directly into the arms and head to help me figure out how to cut the fabric, as seen below:

I added MonserMud to his robe (Best Haunter tools ever…broom stick and flower pot man!!). Note: I only had to mix a small porition of Monster mud for this application.

I wanted to make sure the back area along his spine remained flat since he will be hanging on the wall in my family room. So with that said, I added push pins to hold the fabric flat in the back along spine while drying, as seen in below photo:

You’ll see in the below photos, I jagged the edge of his robe with scissors. I actually decided this after I applied the MonsterMud….prop building is ever changing with me :)

While the MonsterMud was drying, I had to come up with the Gothic torch design. Since my kids can never pick up after themselves and I was sitting there staring at 3 empty water bottles on the desk…the design hit me.

I already purchased the LED candle sticks for $1.99 each from my local craft store before I even started to build him.

 The candle fit inside the opening perfect!

Using scraps from a cereal box I formed a basic cone shape and taped at the seam with duct tape.

 

Once it was in the shape I wanted, I cut off excess and glued bottle top in place as seen below:

I have to be completely honest with the decorative trim I used. I looked up a picture of a Gothic candle holder on-line and literally traced the design from my computer screen directly to a piece of paper. I than cut out the design and transfered it to a piece of ceral box repeating the pattern as seen below:

I glued the card board strip around the top edge of the water bottle.

You will notice I added an old pink shoe string and twine around the center joint area to mask the sharpness of the joints

First coats black base paint added.

Overall height of the torch is 10 inches top to bottom. Imagine the size you can get from a 2 liter..hmmmm…ideas.

Maybe you can trace the traditional Gothic shape as well from the below picture

Added silver highlights to bring out features on torches.

Now that MonsterMud was dry, I could attach my scrap piece of wood to his spine as seen in below photo:

 

Since the color of the skeleton was whiter than I wanted, I coated all the bone with a cream color acrylic paint and dry brushed black over top. There is good reason to my madness of painting the bones cream color first.  1) It so when I apply the stain it will actually adhere to the bones better. 2) I found that by applying a cream colored paint first, second dry brushing black on and than applying your stain you actually end up with a richer and deeper aged tone overall. That’s just my oppion though.

Cream and black dry brush:

Final appearance up close:

Below is the first coats of age to the face.

 

I plan to have face match up to the level of colors seen on the shoulder/torso before he is actually finished:

Below you will see the difference in the face after stain is added (just s bit more gorey).

As far as the robe, I already had used brown paint in my MonsterMud so I just dry brushed black acrylic paint right over the robe for added age.

NOW THE HANDS…using a heat gun (Thank you Angie), I formed the straight hands into a grip/holding postion. I made a card board dummy cone shape similar to my torches to use as a forming template. You’ll see these steps in below photos:

I  laid the heated hand and cone right in my glove and rolled hand around the dummy cone (basically squeezing my hand closed around the cone form). I held for just a few seonds while habd cooled/set-up. Make sure you have thick leather gloves on if you attempt this. The plastic will be HOT!

You will see shape start to take place after first attempt in below photo (I had to heat hand 3 times to complete grip shape):

Perfect grip to hold the gothic torches.

Now I attached the hands to the Reaper. I drilled holes through the arm bone and ran wire through the hole and through the litte loop that was already on the hand. HELPFUL TIP: I added hot glue over holes and wire to mask them in the finished product.

No wires or holes visible after paint is added.

After all that….he’s finished. Below you will several different angles of photos:

 

There you have it…Hope you enjoy and are inspired to make your own.