Does anyone remember "Make & Takes"? It was when a group of haunters would get together and work on a prop project, helping each other out until everyone had a complete prop to go home with. Those were the days...
Waaaay back in 2012, I attended a great Make & Take session with the Garage of Evil Northern Ohio Home Haunters group (RIP). We all purchased a talking skull kit and assembled it during an afternoon together. I was so happy with my talking skull, I decided to fabricate a grim reaper body out of PVC pipes for it, complete with an aged, hooded cloak, skeleton hands, and a hidden particle board shelf within the chest cavity area to house a set of computer speakers to handle the audio. It worked great and was a big hit for that year's haunt display. I recorded custom audio for it to speak and it quickly became a focal point of the haunt.
Original talking skeleton build, 2012.
Fast forward 14 years, and the prop has now seen better days. The past few years, the audio would cut out or completely fail, rendering it a useless static prop. The motherboard finally gave out last year, 10 minutes into trick-or-treat...So for this year, a total refresh was top of the list for prop upgrades. I quickly decided that a replacement talking skull kit would be the main focus, along with some cloak details and an adjustment to the size of the speaker shelf.
After researching talking skull kits, I settled on an already-fabricated kit from Cowlacious Designs. I didn't have the time to build a kit this far into October, so I opted for the Assembled Scary Terry Talking Skull With ST-450 Board. And I couldn't have been happier when it showed up. Very solid build and ready to go right out of the box. And the addition of red LED eyes that were programmed to pulse along with the audio was a huge upgrade!
I dropped my custom audio track onto a microSD card, plugged it into the motherboard slot, and fired it up. Flawless from the start.
And with the time I saved on having to build this kit myself, I was able to really focus in on the skull itself. A basic, bright white skull will NEVER do at Highbury Cemetery, so I set about detailing it to look much creepier, older, decayed and realistic. I gave a dark wood stain dry brushing over the whole thing for more contrast and then further darkened all of the recessed areas in the eyes, nose and mouth. I even went in and removed some of the skull's teeth for added age, decay and withered detail. A few quick steps that made a world of difference on the final piece.
The original skull kit vs. the new skull kit. I didn't realize what a difference until they were side-by-side.
After the skull was complete, I deteriorated the reaper cloak with various paints and sandpaper to give it an dried, aged look. I wanted it to look dull and dusty, like it had already spent centuries in an old, musty tomb.
The last piece to address was the speaker shelf. It worked great holding the hidden speakers inside the chest cavity area, but it stuck out a bit too far when the prop was fully assembled. That is, you could see the edges of the shelf protruding out from the reaper cloak. Something that always bothered the perfectionist in me. But it was finally and quickly remedied with a trim from my Sawzall. I also used a permanent glue to adhere the speakers to the shelf so that they could no longer tip over and fall off the shelf during the night.And once it was all put together, the last thing to do was set it up and grab the camera. I'm really, really happy with this new, upgraded version. And I'm really, really happy with the way the skull turned out. I can't wait to get this guy back out to the front of the display where he belongs, functioning correctly and mesmerizing all of the visitors that walk by.
