DIY Halloween Pumpkin Monster

Hello and welcome to my new Instructable.

My this years Halloween project is a decorative and illuminated Pumpkin Monster inspired by a hanging giant pumpkin head seen in "The Party Place"-YT-Halloween-Videos. It is made from EVA foam floor mats, PVC-Pipe and fabric.

Please take all necessary safety precautions while working with heat, sharp objects, electricity, vapors or resulting gases, bright light, hot water or steam and whatever could endanger your health.

• Foam
• white Paper, Pen
• Contact cement, Glue
• (Masking) tape
• PVC Pipe (25mm)/joints
• Saw
• Installation foam or Pool Noodle
• Wire
• Tinfoil
• Fabric
• Creepy cloth
• Window film
• Stand (in my case an old tire stand)
• Acrylic Paints (black, orange, red, sand yellow, brown)
• Medium
• Brushes
• LED Lights
• Cutter/Scissors
• Ruler
• Heat Gun
• Rotary Tool

I went with the head first. I wasn't sure that it properly will work out. But I'm happy now with the result.

I glued 4 pieces of foam together and projected the reference image on the surface. I outlined the important parts and start to cut the foam. To give it a kind of a 3D-effect I separately created the teeth, painted with sand yellow acrylic paint and finaly weathered, and glued them on later. I shaped the head by using a heat gun. After I was satisfied with the cut lines an the overall shape I painted the head with black and orange acrylic paint.

For the LED installation I quickly made a foam-frame and fixed the LED-strip with wire.

To cover the eye socket, nose and mouth I glued a black painted window film on the backside of the head. To soften the light I also glued on white paper.

The hands are inspired by a variety of YT-Videos. This is the result of a mix of several implementation possibiltys. I went with a thicker wire as the base; some creators only use tape or tinfoil. As long as the result satisfies your needs, all options are OK.

I made the fingers out of the wire, wrapped the tinfoil around and the masking tape. At least I painted the hands with black, brown and orange acrylic paint.

For the armjoint I extended the hand with tape, foam and a wood stick. This perfectly fit the arm wholes.

I had no luck buying pool noodles in my area and didn't wanted to pay a lot of money by placing an internet order.

So I made kind of round tubes out of foam with the heat gun, glued it together, painted it with black acrylic paint and installed the shoulder joints and hands. The arms in the region of the shoulders and the hands are subsequently posable. It's just a plug connection.

Because of very low ceilings in my apartment I couldn't create a hanging pumpkin monster. Therefore I made a stand from an old and by then unused tire stand and new bought PVC-Pipes/joints.

I covered the old stand with black tape and I think that looks good. Inside the tire stand I inserted the PVC-Pipe.

Because of the height of the monster (> 2,20 meters), I put a 4 kg kettlebell-weight at the bottom of the stand to prevent to tilt forward (because of the weight of the head and arms).

I went to my local hardware store and bought a 3 meter PVC-Pipe and joints. I won't post measurements here, because that depends on your conditions. In my case I have low ceilings so I can't go higher than 2,30 meters.

I tried out serveral shoulder width and went smaler and smaler till I reached the final size I thought looks good.

Unfortunatly my hardware store offered no four-way-joint. So I made one myself with a litte help from the internet.

I decided to add a spine to cover the stand/pipe. I used leftover foam, cut it, glued and painted it with black and orange acrylic paint. Then I installed a LED light strip. I painted the LEDs with orange acrylic paint.

After weeks of cutting, shaping, glueing and painting I finally put it all togehter. Some of the fabric I had in the shelf; mainly the creepy cloth I bought new.

I went with several layers of fabric and creepy cloth, but wanted it to stay kind of translucent.

Thank you for reading, watching and paying attention. When I first saw the giant pumpkin head at "The Party City" I immediately wanted to build it.

I mentioned before, I started with the head and at some point I thought that this would never work out as I wanted it to be. But I kept going on and decided that this only would be an onesided object. Maybe I will cover up the back of the head in the future.

After all, it's just foam and it's just paint. If you fail, do it again or try to recover by repainting. I - again - learned so much by doing this.

Please let me know if you've made one as well. Hopefully Auf Wiedersehen in one of my next Instructables.