Shrunken Head

Ernie, the Knight Bus driver, has a sweet talking shrunken head, to keep him company on his many driving adventures. I made the shrunken head from Harry Potter for one of my fellow Pottheads who just got his license, but I never gave it to him because I loved the look of a severed head hanging from my ceiling for Halloween :).

"Take 'er away Ern,"

"Yah, take it away Ernie, this is going to be a bumpy ride,AHAHAHAHAHA,"

Disclaimer: I would not recommend putting this in your windshield, because it will obstruct your view. Don't be stupid, it's a lovely decoration, but I don't want to be responsible for any car crashes.

• expanding foam
• paper clay
• wood glue
• Mod Podge
• yarn
• acrylic paint
• beads (or aluminum foil, i'll explain later)
• wire brush
• Elmer's glue

Most of y'all probably don't have a head replica of your head (it didn't turn out) to carve up, but a pile of expanding foam will probably work the same. I carved it into with a serrated knife, until it was about the size of a bludger.

I then paper mached it.

Note: The paper mache is made out of 3 parts glue, 2 parts water, and 1 part flour. Instead of newspaper I used paper towels, because it is smoother. However it does take longer to dry.

I let it dry on a cup pic 4

I coated the paper mache in wood glue because the clay I used to sculpt everything, sticks magically to it.

Now that the glue is a dry as the books that you so desperately cling to (lol Trelawny), it's time to give this head a little bit of shape. I used a paper clay called Delight because it is lightweight and doesn't shrink which means no cracking.

I started out by just putting blobs where there was more fluff on his face (cheeks, nose crest, upper forehead), then I took a blob, rolled it into a circle, and made it into a nose. The shrunken head (I think his name is Dre Head), had almost no bridge on his nose, so I didn't have to worry about building that up very much.

Dre Head has some big lips, that are in no way symmetrical. I just rolled out some clay and stuck it to his face in a mouth-y shape.

For the eyes I rolled out a tiny ball of clay, and put a slit where they eyelids meet, after that I gently stuck it to the head with a tooth pick.

Note: Dre Head's eyes are slightly farther away from his nose than a normal head's eye's would be

I brushed over everything with a coarse brush and some water, so that it was smoother, then I built the forehead up a little more clay( I ran out of paper clay, so I had to use a different kind )

Dre Head has some sweet dreadlocks. At first I couldn't figure out how should attempt them, but then I just grabbed a ball of yarn and started experimenting

I first cut lengths of yarn ranging between 6-16 inches. Each dreadlocks has 4 pieces of yarn in it. I tied the yarn together, then took a wire brush and aggressively beat the crap out of it, until it was frayed (the more you fray it, the better it will look). I taped the dreads onto a surface so they could dangle down.

I made a mixture of glue, black acrylic paint, and water, and applied it to the yarn, making sure to rough up the frays, and stick everything together.

To paint it, I started out by applying a troll booger color all over the head, then went in and tinted the lips, eyes, and where the shadows naturally fall. After that I added some highlights, on the nose and browbone

I literally shoved a skewer though Dre Head's temple, then pushed a string through that , I later added another string in the back of his head, so it looked kind of like a tee-pee of string.

I glued the dreads on with hot glue, starting with the smaller ones, and ending with the larger ones.

I made some beads out of aluminum foil, that I twisted up then shaped into circles. I painted them green and yellow and stuck them in his hair.

"Mind your head! HA HA HA HA HA"