DIY Partable & Portable Mummy

Hello and welcome. Mummy is my this years Halloween-theme and because I will spent the whole day in my office, I decided to create a lifesize Mummy to arrange in my office. For that reason the Mummy had to be partable & portable.

• Tape (masking tape, clear tape, duct tape etc.)
• Plastic wrap/saran wrap
• Scissors/Cutter
• Gauze bandage
• Jute twine
• Black Tea
• Stand/Rack
• Plastic pipe/Cable shaft
• Card board
• Old jacket/Sweat Shirt
• Hanger
• Packaging styrofoam
• Air cushion packaging/air cushion filling material

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.

The layers

The first layer was plastic wrap - I wrapped everything (lower body, upper body, head) in plastic wrap.

The second layer was masking tape - to keep the costs as low as possible I used a very cheap masking tape.

The third layer - to give it more stability - was clear tape. I used this because I've had this in stock over years now and it was time to be used up.

After the three coats of tape of all kinds *) I cut off the wrap and taped the cutting lines together.

I avoided tape in grey or silver color because I didn't wanted to paint the whole thing in the end.

*) Feel free to use any kind of tape you like. It all will work in my opinion.

Inside the body

To make the body as lightweight as possible I used air cushion packaging/filling material and very thin packing paper. The head was filled with small packaging styrofoam pieces.

Within all bodyparts I placed a pipe/cable shaft as a guide for the stand rods (remnants of a broken IKEA-lamp). I 3D printed a rod connection (screw and bolt) and attachend it via hot glue.

I finished/shut every body part with a card board lid.

The gauze bandage

Thanks to the internets wisdom I dyed the gauze bandages with black tea. Around five minutes to simmer, and 10 minutes to dye. Both the gauze bandages and the black tea reached their "best before" date years ago. So never throw away expired First Aid Kits and black tea. You'll never know when to use the stuff. After a day of drying time I added - with the help of carpet tape - the gauze bandages and jute twine to the body parts.

Since I've done this on my, I thought it would be to dangerous wrapping my head with plastic wrap and cutting along my face. So I went for a mannequin head to mold the Mummys head.

Please check out the fast forward video. All worksteps shown in this video are analog to the upper and lower body (essential and repetitive processes).

Incapable of wrapping my upper body with plastic wrap I took an old worn out jacket and tried out some kinds of arrangements. It ended with the arms crossed in front of the chest underneath the tape and gauze bandages. It could have been more proportional but it went out that way.

I wrapped my legs with plastic wrap. In case of emergency, the scissors was lying straight by my side to cut off the wrap quickly. Wrapping your legs makes you quite immobile and there is a point where you can't bend you knees anymore and you have to stop (unless you are super flexible person). You also will feel pressure/compression on you legs. So please beware of that.

After disassembling the Mummy I stuffed all parts in big trash bags. The heavy stand fitted into my back pack (with a slightly overhang).

I will post pictures as soon as possible.

01.11.2019: Here they are. First I have to say, the Mummy named KahrKahr VauES (private joke) was quite a success. A lot of fotos were taken and everyone puzzeld over, who could be hidden inside.

I placed him in the corner of the hall in front of my room. I decided to give him a sidekick; a big black spider and her babies - ready to attack him.

It was absolutely worth the work over the last weeks. I'm so glad I made it, and I hope it will inspire my colleagues to make what ever they like to make.

First thank you for reading, watching and paying attention. Doing this all by myself was quiete a journey but also tremendous fun and a great learning experience. The mummy is almost 1,70 m = 5.6 ft tall, but slightly out of shape. The stand construction set an unfavourable spot to separate the body into two pieces. But the old lamp stand was the only nearly suitable item I had in stock and I wanted to keep the costs as low as possible. And hey, it represents a 2000 years old Mummy, it's OK to be bulky and unproportional.

The mummy itself is very, very lightweight - the stand plate is the most serious part in this build. So it won't drop dead.