Revised 12 Ft. Skeleton Prop

The revised 12-foot skeleton prop for 2025!

We're getting down to the wire, but I was still able to get one more prop off of the "to do" list! A few years ago, I picked up the popular 12-foot skeleton from Home Depot, as I needed to add some height to my display. I originally corpsed the head and added a full reaper's cloak made from a roll of black fabric and creepy cloth, ensuring that it looked different to all of the other 12 foot skeletons in all of the other yards. 

Halloween, 2024.

And while I liked that initial look, I didn't LOVE it. It always looked a little too "cartoon-y" and the proportions always looked off. And whenever it got wet from rain, it became very heavy and everything would sag. So after last year's incident where the base and head snapped and broke due to being blown over from high winds, I knew this was the year to completely revamp him...

High wind damage, Halloween, 2024.

I first secured a replacement base and a new head-to-neck junction to replace the broken pieces. After all of the replacement pieces were gathered and installed, I first went to work staining the entire skeleton. I wanted to get that darker, more aged and dried look. And while it took a bit for the stain to fully dry on a few of the pieces due to the nature of the smooth plastic, it immediately looked ten times better than the corpsed flesh treatment I had originally done.

Replacement head-to-neck junction from Frawsted Creations.

The next step was to add a new cloak. And based on a cool reference photo shared by Cemetery friend Brent Wilson, I wanted to add whisps of fabric to further the decayed look. This lighter treatment of fabric would also keep the entire skeleton lighter in weight overall, and less likely to catch and winds and possibly get blown over again.

I ended up using the original old black fabric, cut into long thin strips, and then loosely wrapped around the legs and arms, further adding larger tattered pieces for the waist and shoulders. I added a few pieces of tattered stretched creepy cloth as highlight accent pieces over that and called it done. A lot less fabric ended up looking way better!

For restraining the overall approach to detailing it, I couldn't be any happier with the final look. A quick turnaround and setup in a new location toward the back my display was just the refresh it needed. I added an off-white uplighting to add that extra bit of creepiness and attention at night and now it's once again a main focal point in the Cemetery, towering over the rest of the props in the display.

Home Depot 12 Ft. Skeleton Upgrade

Something that I have noticed this year is that EVERYONE around me has a Home Depot 12 Ft. Skeleton in their front yard now. Heck, some people have two or more! I was suffering from FOMO (fear of missing out) last year, so I ended up biting the bullet and buying one for my display, too. (Really I wanted to add one because I realized that my display was lacking in anything over 7 feet in height and I needed something to break the flat, limiting, horizontal feel of the cemetery setup...)

Immediately upon buying it, I already knew that there was no way that my display would have just another 12 ft. skeleton plopped into it. At this point, these skeletons have become so commonplace you almost ignore them in any display. (Personal opinion, of course...)

So to get mine to stand out, I decided that I wanted to have a 12 ft. corpsed, cloaked reaper!

I started with the basic assembly, but did a tried-and-true drop cloth and heatgun corpsing technique to the head and neck, the only features of the skeleton that would be visible.

After attaching the stained, dried flesh corpse head, I wrapped the entire figure in a black fabric hooded cloak, complete with creepy cloth to give it a few different black hues and to give it extra textured layers. After pinning all of the fabric sections together, it was time to drop him into the front yard.

He now sits at the beginning section of the cemetery display, the first thing you'll see as you come up the street for trick-or-treat. He guards over a coffin that will contain an old skeleton with internal lights and fog, and the entire scene is bathed in a new LED green strobe light. I'm running out of time for this year, but the next step will be to add some sort of wooden staff to his hand. I'm leaning toward some sort of illuminated lantern, but we'll see...

I'm super excited to see the new skeleton reaper in position, and with the simple upgrades will definitely bring a little something extra compared to the sea of out-of-the-box 12 ft. skeletons that everyone else has.

As my young neighbor says, "Uhh.. creepy cool?"

  

Centuries After Death, Mummies Still Telling Stories

I recently came across this interesting story by Karen Weintraub over at National Geographic:

After they died, the wealthiest and most prominent residents of 18th-century Vilnius, Lithuania, were interred beneath the Dominican Church of the Holy Spirit, in the center of town...

...More than half the bodies in the Lithuanian crypt quickly decomposed, leaving behind nothing but skeletal remains. But for some reason—perhaps the season of their death combined with the consistently dry underground climate—other bodies dried out and naturally turned into mummies. Instead of becoming skeletons, skin survived intact and facial features remained recognizable.

Photos by Kiril Cachovskij

Be sure to check out the rest of the story and photo gallery at National Geographic. When viewed through the eyes of a haunter, the photos make an incredible reference material for corsping, but the story itself should not be overlooked. Each mummy has endured centuries of time, yet been preserved in a completely timeless state, still able to give an accurate snapshot into the individual's life before their final burial.

  

Le Cadavre de Vodoun

The next completed prop to shamble out of the garage is my new, voodoo-inspired piece, Le Cadavre de Vodoun. The Voodoo Corpse has been prepped to meet with Baron Samedi, voodoo ruler of the graveyard, and be escorted to the underworld beyond the living...

The first piece that I started with was the coffin that would contain the corpse. I went straight from ScareFX's great tutorial on their $25 Full-Size Toe Pincher Coffin. I constructed the entire thing in a weekend and the detailed how-to was easy to follow. I ended up making a few minor edits to the measurements, as the cedar fence panels that I used may have been slightly thinner than the ones that were used for the tutorial. Also, the materials were slightly more than $25 at the local Home Depot. I decided that I liked the look of the wood as it was, so I didn't do any aging of any kind once it was built. I will be placing the finished piece in a dimly lit room, so the brightness of the bare wood would pop more in the low light...

Once the coffin was complete, it was time to turn to its inhabitant. I used a Costco skeleton and started corpsing it using a great how-to from Allen Hopps at Stiltbeast Studios. I used a .7 mil drop cloth wrapped loosely around the body, limbs and skull, and then went over it all with a heat gun. The heat worked great, as it caused the plastic to melt and seal itself onto the skeleton form. A few layers of plastic and it looked like a semi-transparent flesh. This technique is really fast and really easy...

Once the plastic corpsing was done, I simply coated everything with some wood stain, making sure to wipe off the raised areas with a rag. If you're going to try this technique, please wear rubber gloves as you probably don't want to stain your fingers Deep Walnut or any other dark wood color.

The stain took about 48 hours to dry completely, and once it dried, I went about adding the voodoo elements. I started with a quick necklace made of small skulls. The skulls came from Pat Catan's and cost about $5 for two small bags. I then added a skeleton key necklace (the corpse will use the key to unlock the gate to the underworld), using an old skeleton key that I had found in my grandfather's garage earlier this summer. The final touch was to add a faded skull face paint to the corpse's actual face. I added a red cross on the forehead and he was ready to be entombed. I placed him into the coffin and added some cobwebbing...

I'm REALLY happy with the way the dried flesh turned out. It's semi-transparent so that you can see some of the bones, yet still looks like it has been dried out over the years. Once the entire prop was together, the only thing left to do was get it into the correct lighting along with a few more accent pieces for some night shots. The complete piece below will be taking center stage of my voodoo crypt room on Halloween night. I can't wait!