Paper Mache Skeletons

Step 6 Painting

Give that guy a good coat of your base color. The newsprint tends to soak in a lot of the paint, so I suggest buying two cans of the spray.

With some dark brown acrylic, sponge on the texture all over. You can cheat, if you know at what angle people will be viewing the final prop.

At this point, you're probably wondering what we're going to do about the skull. My advice: just buy one of those four dollar foam skulls and hot glue it on. It's just not worth your time to try to make a realistic skull from scratch. Of course, you can always embellish it.

You'll also want some way to keep those bones together. I drill a small hole into the end of each one and glue a piece of wire in, connecting the two bones together.

Comments

[annithrax]

Hey, just wanted to add a little bit in regards to the skulls.

If you're making a whole bunch of skeletons and four bucks turns into more like 40, you can pick up a couple of foam heads, wrap it in foil (or anything else to stop contact between your mold and the mache) and paper maché on to that.

To remove it from your skully mold, just cut down the middle, the foil makes it easier to pry off, then tape on the inside, maché over the cut and you've got yourself a pretty good paper skull and still have a mold to make more =)

Your instructable is awesome by the way, and your skeleton looks really well turned out!

[mommasmith]

You did not say how to attach arms or legs to body or head? Are there clavicles in this design? How do you attach the Pubic gurde and the legs to the pubic area? Your instructions could use an update. The idea is a great one and cheap. What do you seal it with?