DIY Halloween Skeleton Droid / Dummy

Paul shows you how to build a skeleton or dummy, not only for Halloween. If you need a cheap and simple to make dummy for your next movie, theater piece or reenactment, this instructable is for you! In this particular instructable we will build a lost in time Cyber Skeleton Droid from outer space.

Our intention is not to build an anatomic precise replica of a skeleton but to replicate something that replicates the same outer shape of a human or animal and articulates in a same maner. It can be decorated or dressed with clothes, gloves or filled with rockwool, it has articulating joints and is quite sturdy to handle.

Almost everything we use you will find somewhere in your house or apartment. No specialized tools or paints are required. However a lot of the cyber themed stuff are recuperations Paul has made over the years as a Prop builder. Old computer Parts, cables, pcb boards etc. You can always check the electric dumpster or simply buy a scrap crt tv from your local Goodwill for parts.

What do we need for the Skeleton:

Scrap Wood (broom sticks, 1by1´s,twigs, pvc pipe, copper pipe, Bamboo what looks a bit like bone, everything works )

some sheet-, chip- or ply- wood

Wood Screws

Washers

Screw Gun

Jigsaw

Pieces of thick cloth or an old jeans

Hot Glue

Spray Paint (all dark colors will do, we use black, gold and silver)

Thick Wire (electrical wire works best)

What do we need for the Cyber Skeleton Droid:

A whole bunch of cables and wires (to be found at a electric dump site or contruction site dumpster) (of course do not trespass!)

Hoses, tubing of differend sizes

Pcb´s from old computers, tv´s or industrial machines

Cheap plastic Skeleton

Blinking LED´s of differend colors

Cling wrap

Green light wire found at a Dollar Store

Small kitchen torch

Cable Ties

To start we need the dimensions of a skeleton. Before you go and google those, hey we all have an original inside us so lets grab a ruler and lets measure. Paul starts with his upper arm.

Taking the measure and cutting two pieces of branch he cut earlier in his garden. We will always go a little bit shorter as the joints will take up some space aswell, so we keep every part a finger width short.

He repeats this step for every bone he needs. In this first step we need the following pieces:

2 Upper arm bone

2 ell and spoke of the under arm

1 shoulder (simply measure the width of your shoulders and cut a piece of branch)

1 hip bone (yes thats not a bone but measure the width of your hips and cut a piece of branch. This also defines if your skeleton will be female or male)

2 thigh bone

1 shinbone

We measure from the mid of the head down to the upper butt and again keep it a bit shorter because there will be multiple joints later on. Speaking of joints, we want the spine to become flexible so whe cut that piece up into 5 same size segments, One of the segments Paul replaces with a piece of counter-batten as this will become part of the head and it is easier to screw things into it.

Next each segment gets two screws and washers as seen in the picture. Notice how on the last one what will become the lower back, Paul lets some overhang and puts one screw in the middle of the segment. Now we connect them with a long piece of wire. We loop it around each screw before tightening them. Our spine if finished

Again we measure the width of our upper head, then use this measurement to draw an oval or a head shape onto a piece of multiplex wood.

Paul cuts the shape out with his jig saw, then sands down the edges before screwing it into the to of the spine using a single screw.

At the lower end of the head segment we now screw in the shoulder piece. Don´t overtighten the screws as we want these joints to move later on. Paul does the same thing with the "hip bone", screwing it into the last spine segment. Notice how he puts it on the first third of this spine segment.

Now we do the joints! Everywhere our skeleton has a joint we drill a simple hole the diameter of your wire. Make sure the holes are in the right spot for each axis of movement.

Next we join all the parts together with electrical wire. Twisting the wire strongly so they don´t come loose.

If you have noticed Paul only cut one shinbone, thats because he want the result look more like something a professor has assembled in his manor, so he decided to make his left leg out of a plastic skeleton leg to give it a somewhat humanoid touch.

Now as our basic skeleton comes together a very important thing is that we restrict the joints from making unnatural movements. The elbow for example cannot bend 300 deg. So we use a simple but very cool trick! And believe me, even you now think this thing looks like c**p, after this step our skeleton will behave quite realistic!

Now we need some sturdy cloth, Paul uses some pieces of an old jeans and cuts out some strips.

He folds it double before screwing them in place with some screws and washers. Of course you must see what angle you want to restrict in movement. In this case the elbow should not overpass 0 degrees, so Paul attaches the cloth strip on the inside of the elbow. Cloth tends to wind up around the screw, so maybe punch a hole in first. After the piece is in place, the elbow now works like the original.

Do this to each joint. In the video we don´t do this as we use the stiffness of the cables and wires we will add later. also it depends what you want to do with this thing later on. If your skeleton should only sit on your porch you may skip this step. However after this procedure you will see how realistic the whole contraption now behaves when you pick him up the table.

We take him outside and give him a quick spray. Paul explains that he is not using excessive amounts of spray. Its not about coating the whole thing in paint. A light spray cloud instead blends the parts together and also gives it a "patina" like effect. You can however darken some joints a little. Pauls uses old almost empty black and brown spray cans for this procedure

Like Edward Scissor Hands our droid needs hands... at least one so Paul goes ahead and has a pretty nice trick.

He first draws around his hand on a piece of multiplex wood. Now having the approximate shape, he cuts out the palm of the hand. Notice how he takes away a bit extra for the opposing thumb.

Next on every nuckle he places a screw with washer before again winding electrical wire around them. He leaves some extra slag for mounting the hand later. Paul forms the fingers using his drawing on the remaining wood as a template. Make the fingers about 2 cm or a half inch longer than the drawing. Wind the wire around each screw twice for stability before tightening the screws.

Next Paul cuts 10 pieces of pipe the lentgh of his own finger segments and sticks them onto the finger shaped wire before hotglueing them in place.

After a light cloud of paint in silver, gold and black, the hand is finished. When you build a dummy you can shove this into a glove and you will have articulating fingers.

He can now hold something!

In our case we simply use flexible cheap cable conduit to form some ribs. Notice that Paul uses differend lengths. After pinching them flat at both ends, he screws them in place. As the conduit is flexible you can bend them in place.

As you see at the end of the video, Paul added a piece of metal in the middel as a breast bone.

If you are making a more realistic dummy you can cut out rip cage shaped disks of plywood or even use thick cardboard.

Now as we are making a lost in time Space Droid Skeleton we need random parts, cable, wire and pipes. Lots of them! The more, the better. Paul runs cables down the spine, attaches them with cable ties before splicing them up and make them run all over the body. The nice thing is that as there will be cables and wires everywhere, you can now add wires for any electrics you want to install. In our case i bought a 2 buck green "light wire", what is basicly like a string of leds but without single leds.

Paul treads the light wire thru some clear pvc hose to make them more abstract. Speaking of clear pvc hose, Paul adds them to all of the extremities for a more biological look.

Notice to leave enough slag in order to later move the joints.

Old circuit boards from computers, TV´s and industiral equipment are added. Most circuit boards have holes already drilled, so he uses them to screw them onto the skeleton. Of course hotglue comes in handy but for a lot of parts that are heavy it makes the whole build rather fragile in the end. So Paul uses as many screws as possible.

This is some fun work and can eat up hours of the day as you will find more and more places on the skeleton that will need some interesting addons.

We threw on a lot of shiny stuff too, from old propane torches, flashlights to rc car gearboxes. Everything can work!

There are blinking LED´s on ebay. They are cheap and have the blinking circuit already integrated. When you apply a voltage, the LED starts blinking. As Paul and i where lazy Paul uses a simple trick.

He takes a button cell battery that has about 3volts, with the right polarity he simply sticks the battery between the two legs of the LED´s, fixing it with some tape.

The battery will have enough energy top power the two LED´s for around two days.

Our Droid needs a heart! Therefore Paul uses one of his famous tricks... The cling wrap trick

He sprays some sprayglue onto the thin plastic foil and forms it into a loose ball. With a kitchen blowtorch he melts the plastics a bit to give it an odd look after sticking in the two blinking LED´s.

A drop of hotglue and the heart sticks at the right spot.

At the end Paul blends all the shapes and colors together by again dusting a very light cloud of black spraypaint over it. This is not meant to overpaint any of the parts but to ever so slightly blending everything together.

Our time traveled cyber droid skeleton is finished and now hangs out in Pauls frontyard. I added two "Fat Beam" laser diodes so as some strobe lights to set the right atmosphere.

I hope you enjoyed this project! Let us know how your project came out!

Happy Halloween from the three of us!