Ashland Hanging Tattered Reaper Prop Upgrade

My second prop of the season is done! I recently picked up an Ashland Hanging Tattered Reaper from Michael's. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do with it when I bought it, but I knew that it was a good starting point and that I could make something really cool with it. The only idea I had was to convert it from a flimsy hanging prop into a freestanding piece that would take its place at the front fence of my Cemetery display.

After about two weeks of creating, corpsing, detailing, and fine tuning, I took the finished piece out to a great open field near my house for some epic photos.

My finished piece...

After bringing the original piece home from the store, I got to work disassembling all the parts and building a new t-shaped body frame out of 3/4" PVC piping. I added PVC elbow pieces for the shoulders and neck, and then added extra PVC pieces and elbows to make rigid, bent arms. I next used old packing bubble wrap to bulk out the upper torso. Finally, I hit sections of the main support PVC pipe with a heat gun, bending areas to create a twisted and hunched figure.

I then took the skull and added a screw to the jaw to set it open as if screaming, and did a full, multilayered corpsing with plastic drop cloth and my trusty heat gun. I added a PVC plug into the bottom of the skull, and attached it at an angle to the neck, giving it a contorted, twisted look. And once the head was set, I added a corpsed neck section for added realism and bulk (and to cover the inner PVC frame).

Next, I cut the original, flimsy wire-and-foam arms from the form and stuffed and glued them into the ends of the new PVC arm sections that I had built. Once they were set and dry, I did the same corpsing technique to both arms and hands.

Once the twisted body form was set and fully corpsed, I reattached the original cloak (after a bit of extra tattering, bleach splattering, and a light misting of orange spray paint) to the body. It now had an old, earthy appearance, perfect for the decayed look I was going for. I also ended up leaving the original plastic chain attached, giving it a mist of the orange spray paint to give it an old, rusted look.

After finishing the cloak, the final step was adding a wood stain to the corpsed flesh areas of the body. I concentrated the most detail on the head, adding heavy coats of stain and quickly wiping away the raised areas to create higher contrast around the eyes, nose and mouth.

And that was it! Another new piece ready to be placed into this year's display. A quick and easy upgrade to a store-bought piece that is going to look a thousand times better. I'm SUPER happy with the results and really excited to now start on the next, even bigger prop!

  

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?"