Halloween DIY "VECNA" From the Stranger Things Series

This year Paul shows tricks of how to sculpt Stranger Things new vilain VECNA using things you probably and mostly have at home. Of course these tricks can be used to create all kind of props not only for Halloween.

Materials:

1 cheapo plastic skeleton

some old cloth

new or used Pantyhose

Rockwool

Electric conduit (plastic)

Electrical wire

some String and rope of differend diameter (shoelaces for ex.)

Cling wrap (stuff you wrap cheese in)

1-2 ft of old gardenhose

a print of the thing you want to create (idealy multiple printouts that show lots of detail for reference)

Tools and expendables

Sprayglue

Contact glue

Hotglue

Acrylic putty (idealy in brown)

Spraypaint (black,brown,red)

2 wide rolls of papertape

1 thin roll of papertape

Gaffer Tape

brown and red acrylic paint

some stiff clear plastic packing material

scissors

pliers

carpet knife

big brush

water sprayer

propane torch

gloves (for hotglue)

single use gloves for smearing the acrylic

hand saw

Paul wants the Vecna to "grow" out of a tree or wall. Therefore he cuts the plastic skeleton diagonaly accross the rib cage using scissors, pliers and a saw.

In order to "camouflage" the cuttingline and to make the illusion look better he uses some pieces of an old t-shirt and glues them onto the edge using hotglue. This also helps to later fix the build to a tree or wall

Next our skeleton needs some flesh. For that Paul uses Rockwool. He glues pieces of it onto the skeleton using hotglue. Modern rockwool stings a bit less than the old stuff but it is recommanded to use gloves and to protect your working area to avoid having scratchy fibers everywhere. Of course we try to shape a realistic looking torso.

Now our fleshed up skeleton needs some skin. Pantyhose is a wonderful material for this purpose as it streches in every direction and is easy to apply. However it is important to check if your brand of pantyhose is resistant to hotglue and does not melt thru. Paul uses hotglue and sprayglue to strech over the pantyhose.

Next is the most tricky and artistic part. Paul tries to recreate the basic shapes of Vecnas skull. Eyes and nose are the most recognizable things and need some detailed work. Here comes the printout in handy as a reference. With some electrical wire, old shoelaces and hotglue Paul recreates the basic facial features. You can use hotglue as a sculpturing material here, thickening lines or contours.

To blend in all the materials and smooth things out, Paul uses some paper or masking tape. Here you can use masking tape as a sculturing material to cover holes and straighten out things.

With some more shoelaces and electrical wire, Paul recreates the veins on Vecnas head and add more detail.

To make failures and unwanted things more visible Paul gives the skull a light dusting in brown spraypaint. this will blend all the differend colors, layers and and materials together and makes it way easier to see first results

Next step are the big veins coming out of Vecnas skull. Here everything that has the right diameter and length can be used from Electrical conduit, wire, hoses, string, rope to foam gaskets. Paul cuts the materials to length and bends them in shape before glueing them on with some hotglue. Diagonal cuts make the veins disapear into Vecnas torso. For the foam gasket Paul uses sprayglue as hotglue tends to "eat" the soft foam material away. Also in this step refering to a screenshot or photo is very helpful to get fine details right. Again hotglue is used to make additional veins as a sculpting material.

With the head and torso done Paul start building the claw. As he cutted the skeleton diagonally there is one arm and hand to be "demon-ized".

On a piece of styro or paper he draws the basic shape of the claw to make it easier to guess the right dimensions.

With some electrical wire he then follows the drawing roughly bending a thumb and four fingers.

He cuts 10 x 1 inch pieces of old garden hose, sticks two of them onto each wire-finger then glues them in place with some hotglue. He leaves a gap between the two pieces fo hose, this will become a flexible joint.

Each finger then gets wrapped with masking tape. Paul purposely crinkles the tape where the joints suppose to be in order to thicken those areas. With some gaffer tape he covers the finger tips and the back of the hand before hotglueing and taping the claw to the skeleton arm.

Some clear plastic (clear stiff packing stuff) is used to cut out some long and dangerous looking nails.

Paul glues them in place and camouflage the edges with masking tape to make them blend into the finger before snipping them into shape with some pliers.

Again to blend all the materials together, Paul goes over with a light coat of brown spray paint

Time for some goop. Acrylic goop to be precise. This stuff can be found in every home improvement store next to silicone. Dont use silicone, it will take forever to dry and will not be paintable that easy! Acrylic putty dries fairly quick and is waterbased. You can paint over it aswell. Use gloves, it will become messy!

Paul covers the entire prop with a light coat of this putty using some water to make it smoother and blends all the veins and materials together while taking care to not make to much detail disapear.

With some old brown acylic paint Paul gives the creature a base coat before adding in some red paint aswell to make him look gorey.

Some black spraypaint will be applied at an angle to bring out details even more and cast "shaddows".

In this case Paul stole some "eye shaped" candies from his daughter but you could make your own aswell. You could for example use two halves of a plastic sphere (gum or toy dispencer machine), cut out some eyes from a magazine and glue them inside. This could make a very scary pair of eyes!

Important thing here is to glue them in place without making him look cross eyed!

A light mist of brown spraypaint blends them in a bit as in this case they where sticking out to much.

This one is a bit dangerous and should be done outdoors under adult supervison!

The cling wrap trick is one of Pauls favorite and here is how it works.

Apply some sprayglue to Vecnas head.

Cover it with one coat of cling wrap. Try to not make to many crinkles in this case.

Cover the cling wrap in spraypaint (Paul uses brown for the first coat)

Wait a minute to let the solvents evaporize!!!

With a water sprayer in one hand and a small propane torch in the other now carefully burn holes into the plastic and melt it onto the skull.

Of course the molten plastics will be very very hot so watch out!

The fumes of burned plastic and spraypaint are very toxic aswell!

Use a watersprayer in case it flames up to much.

Paul repeated these steps 3 times (second layer red then black with brown for the final layer)