Dummy Project
My dummies are one of my most prized possessions at my haunt. I start putting these guys together at the beginning of the summer just to make sure that I have enough. This 98 year I had a total of 30 dummies.
Basic Materials
1. Old Clothing (make sure you are using something that you aren't going to want to wear ever again) Long sleeve shirt, pants, shoes, gloves etc.
2. Sewing Materials (your mom or wife will work just fine)
3. Newspaper (make sure everyone has read it first)
4. Plastic Bags (Yes, i'm the one who is running out of the grocery market with a box of them)
5. Packing Peanuts
6. Empty gallon (from milk is perfect)
7. Mask (not too costly)
8. Wooden Poles
9. Safety Pins
10. Black paint
Building Instructions
1. First you are going to have to sew that dummy up. You have to sew him up at the waist where the bottom of the shirt meets the top of the pants. Then you have to either sew the gloves which are already stuffed or safety pin the monster hands to the sleeves.
2. So now you have an unstuffed dummy who looks like he's been hit by a steamroller. Now you have to gather some of your plastic bags and put newspaper in them. This is the difficult part where you have to judge how much you want in each bag to make your dummy look as real as possible.
I normally start with a small amount in the bags at the bottom of the legs and the end of the arms and gradually gain more newspaper as I come closer to the body. (the purpose of the plastic bags is to keep the newspaper from getting too wet if it rains and turning your dummy into a puddle
of wet newspaper which can really ruin your effect.)
3. Now you have a dummy with no head, no feet, and stuffed arms and legs. Now come the packing peanuts. I use these to keep the form of my dummies better than newspaper. I stuff a plastic bag full of packing peanuts and wrap another bag around it just for extra protection on the peanuts.
4. The peanuts are then placed into the main torso of the body and you be the judge on how many you want in there to make your dummy look life-like.
5. Now that the dummy is stuffed it needs feet. So you take your old pair of shoes and some safety pins. You basically just safety pin the shoes to the bottom of the pant legs and that holds in the newspaper bags too.
6. The next part is to put his head on. (If you are working with a decapitation then you can leave him like this and you're done) But to put the head on you need that empty milk gallon that has already been painted black.
7. Put the black empty milk gallon in the dummies head with the handle facing forward and the nozzle pointed down towards the opening of the mask. You can use this hole for poles to hold the dummy up like a backbone.
8. Safety pin the mask to the dummy's neck. You will probably notice that the head is going to flop over and that's why you put the back bone in and run it either into the ground to make the dummy stand up or just leave it inside the shirt to make him sit up straight.
9. Display your dummy in anyway possible to make him seem like a real monster or a dead body. You can rip off arms or legs and his head. Do whatever you have to do to make your yard scene the best on the block or the town.
Back to The Haunting at 332.
Email me at: HAUNT332@aol.com
