Showing posts with label grave breaker. Show all posts

Animated Grave Breaker 2023 Prop Upgrade

Two years ago, I picked up a cheap Grave Breaker prop from Halloween City and transformed it into a ghastly, twisting corpse powered by a reindeer motor. You can check out the corpsing portion of the project here, and the animation portion here. It was a fun little build that added some much-needed movement to the front of my display.

Fast forward to today and I have now added a second version to my Cemetery. A few weeks back I was in my local Michael's checking out their Halloween wares, and I came across another Grave Breaker static prop and threw it in the cart. Cheap to begin with, but makes for a great starting point on another animated ghoul that I needed to add to my display...

I followed the same corpsing technique as the first prop, giving it a grotesque, dead flesh look. I ended up adding whisps of hair from an old wig to give it just a bit more creepiness (I simply snipped sections of hair from the wig and applied it randomly using contact cement.)

After the corpsing portion was done, I turned to animating it. The first prop turns side-to-side, so I decided that this version would rock front-to-back. I ended up throwing a linkage arm together with leftover pieces from the first build, powered by a vertically-mounted reindeer motor that I had left over. I mounted the arm to a single piece of PVC, pivoting on a single bolt and washer axle. (Take a look at the original supply list here.)

I'm really happy with the results of this one. It's a huge upgrade to the out-of-the-box piece, and it all went together quickly and fairly easily. I love the subtlety of the movement, as its slow, creepy lunge is just enough to catch your eyes and will look great among the tombstones at the front of my display.

Grave Breaker Prop Upgrade: Part Two

Last Saturday, I shared Part One of my store-bought Grave Breaker prop upgrade, giving him more undead flesh and overall creepiness.

This week, I'll show you how I took it even further, adding motion to the formerly static prop!

After the "corpsification" was complete, I decided to finally use an old reindeer motor I had laying around and animate this guy. I ended up using HiLo Greg's excellent YouTube tutorial with a few minor modifications. I made my way to my local Lowe's and came back with the following items to build it:

- Hillman 1/2" x 5.5" mending plate (5-pack)
- #8-32 x 1-1/4" round combo bolts (I only needed one at this length)
- #8-32 x 1/2" truss combo bolts (x4)
- #8 flat washers
- #8 lock washers
- #8-32 nylon insert lock nuts
- #000 x 3-7/8" eye hook screw
- 3/4" PVC pipe section
- 1" PVC end cap
- 5/32 x 1-1/2 cotter pin
- Gorilla Glue
- scrap 1" x 6" piece of board
- scrap 1" x 2" piece of board
- FrightProps Fixed Speed 110V AC 5RPM Deer Motor
- I also bought a 90-degree angle bracket, but I ended up not using it.

Right out of the gate, I noticed that my reindeer motor did NOT have the plastic swing arm piece that I see on most motors, so I had to start by fabricating one. I used a handful of flat washers on the spindle to build up support, and used half of a mending plate for the swing arm. I ran a cotter pin through the spindle hole to secure the arm in place. I ended up hitting it with a few drops of Gorilla Glue just to make sure it wouldn't move at all.

Once the fabricated arm was solid, I then made the next swing arm connection with a full mending plate. I ended up using an inverted 1-1/4" mending bolt (threads facing up), a stack of flat washers, and a nylon lock nut. I needed to stack it so that the connection arm would clear the motor spindle when it rotated around. I connected the other end of the mending plate with the 1/2" truss combo bolt, flat washers, and a nylon lock nut to the remaining half of the first mending plate (waste not, want not). IMPORTANT! Leave a little play on both lock nuts so that the bolts will be secure, but still loose enough that the arms can still pivot around, as they will move back and forth.

The half mending plate section was then FULLY connected to a 90-degree angle piece of plate with 2x 1/2" truss combo bolts, washers, and lock nuts. Make sure this connection is tightened completely!

The 90-degree angle piece of plate is then screwed into a small section of 3/4" PVC pipe. I used 2 wood screws that I had laying around, and they need to be secured to the vertical PVC pipe tightly.

The last part of the build was the PVC pipe shaft. I used a small piece of pipe, as I wanted to keep the corpse figure close to the ground. I also took the 1" cap and screwed it down onto the scrap piece of 1" x 6". The slightly oversized cap acts like a cup for the PVC pipe section to rotate back and forth in smoothly. I also screwed a scrap piece of 1" x 2" next to the PVC pipe and screwed the eye hook in at the top. The eye hook acts as a guide to hold the rotating PVC pipe at the top while it rotates in the end cap at the bottom.

Once all of these linkage pieces were assembled and rotating correctly, I had to adjust the placement of the motor itself on the 1" x 6" so that I got a full, clean rotation on all of the pieces. Once I found a clean spot, I screwed the motor housing down, using existing screw holes on the motor's body.

Once everything was fixed in place and moving smoothly, I simply slid the slightly smaller piece of black pipe on the corpse prop right down into the PVC pipe shaft. It fits snug enough that I don't need to glue it in. It holds as is and rotates smoothly.

And after I had all of the final adjustments dialed it, I simply plugged it in and let it run! Flawless, slow rotations back and forth adding just a little bit more creepiness to an off-the-shelf Halloween prop!

And here is a video of the motor and linkage arms, working in sweet, sweet harmony.

The final step will be to add some finishing details. I'm going to paint the wood and PVC section black so that you can't see it at night. I'm also going to add some creepy cloth to the bottom of the prop's shirt so that the motor section is hidden from view.

I had a blast figuring this thing out and I'm REALLY happy with how it tuned out. Huge thanks to Hilo Greg and his video for giving me a template to work from! This will be placed up front in this year's layout and will provide some much-needed movement to break up an otherwise static display.

Grave Breaker Prop Upgrade: Part One

2 weeks ago, a Halloween City opened up near me. I never have any luck finding anything for my yard haunt at these types of stores, but I decided to go in just to get some haunt spirit motivation.

They had just opened and were still in the process of filling their shelves, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught a small Grave Breaker prop. And it actually looked kinda cool.

My mind raced with ideas on how to make it much creepier and I decided to bring it home and immediately got to work...

In looking at the prop, I realized that it was a bit flimsy out of the box, so my first step was to beef it up a bit.

I removed the hair and sculpted part of a foam ball that I had laying around to form out a full head. I used a few toothpicks and some Gorilla Glue to join the piece to the back of the head. For some reason, this prop had a flat back of the head, which wouldn't work when viewed from anywhere but straight on. And I had plans for this guy to be up at the front of my display...

Once the glue dried, I went to work on "corpsing" him. On a quick note, some people like to paint the skull before adding the corpsing layers, but I don't. I keep the skull as bright as possible, so that it will stay lighter in the highlight areas once the staining is complete. I also add 3 to 4 layers of plastic "flesh" to the body to get better raised areas, especially across the face.

I use the standard .7-mil plastic drop cloth, torn off into random, jagged pieces. I wrap the pieces around the skull (or other body part to be "corpsed") and then simply shrink/melt it with a heat gun. The plastic reduces down nicely, and when layered will form a solid layer of flesh. I added extra pieces of plastic to the areas I wanted raised, like the brow, cheeks, and lips.

When using the heat gun, I will pay special attention to the face, namely the eye sockets, the nose cavity, and most importantly the mouth. I want to form those areas as realistically as possible, trying to get the prop to emote emotion. I will always try to keep the mouth open, as though it's screaming.

Once I'm satisfied with the flesh layers and the facial expression, I get to staining. I use whatever I have laying around, which happened to be a small can of dark wood stain. I start with a full, heavy coat over the entire head. I then take paper towels and carefully wipe away the raised areas that I want to highlight. I will then go back and add a little bit of stain to the areas I want to keep dark, adding as much contrast as possible. (PLEASE wear gloves while doing this!)

I went and spattered the wood stain across the prop's clothing to dirty it up a bit, too.

On this particular prop, I went in after the stain had dried, and added some black paint to the eye sockets, nose cavity and inside the mouth for even more contrast and detail.

Once everything had dried, it was ready to photograph!