Foxy the Animatronic Fox From Five Nights at Freddy's

Somewhere around October 7th my daughter comes home from school and says "I know what I want to be for Halloween!!!"

"Great!" I say, "What?"

"Foxy, from Five Nights at Freddy's"

"What's that?" I asked.

"It's an animatronic fox from a video game" she tells me with obvious exasperation that I have no idea what she's talking about. She continues telling me all about the game but the only thing in my thoughts was "I'm so old. My daughter is telling me about video games I've never even heard of, and I love video games." Once the senility cleared my mind began to race about how I could make this thing. As luck would have it that weekend we went to a couple garage sales and a vision began to appear...

Step 1: Materials and Supplies

For the animatronic look I wanted to build up armor around my daughter, but didn't want it too big. To do that I picked up a bunch of different knee, elbow, shin pads and some football shoulder pads. For the head I started with a hockey helmet. Those were the basis for the project and everything else I used is also listed here. Many items I used I grabbed out of my garage so I note what the item came from.

Hockey helmet

Football shoulder pads

Assortment of protective pads

Stiff foam from fabric store

2 yards of tan faux fur

1/4 yard salmon colored fabric

1 sq foot of sheer black fabric

Red fabric spray paint

Ping pong ball eyes

1/2 inch pvc tube

Old drain line from a dehumidifier

Top "funnel" piece from an old percolator coffee pot

Copper ground wire for circuit breaker panel

Pair of chopsticks (this is the third ible I've done with chopsticks in it. I never realized how versatile they can be).

Silver and flat white model paint

Aluminum foil

Major Tools in addition to misc screwdrivers, razor knive, etc.:

Sewing machine

Hot glue gun

Cordless drill with 1/4" bit

Rivet gun

Needle and thread

Cable ties

Step 2: Start the Headpiece

I wanted her to be able to see out of Foxy's mouth, so I planned on having the snout come out of the forehead, and the bottom jaw extend from the bottom of the face shield. I stripped the helmet and shield of all straps. To secure the face shield I riveted the shield to the side of the helmet.

I cut a block of foam and shaped it for the nose. Once I had the shape I wanted I tied it to the helmet with some twine and then hot glued it to hold it in place.

Once the snout was secured I mounted a block to the bottom to make the jaw. This time I mounted it before shaping it. I wanted Foxy to maintain a fairly asymmetric look and have an underbite. I felt it would be easier to achieve this if the foam was already attached. At this point I also taped the eyes in general position to start getting a sense of how Foxy was coming to life.

I then formed the ears and taped them to the helmet for the mockup. I was able to play with the positions of the ears and eyes to figure out where I wanted them for the best look.

Step 3: Covering the Headpiece - Jaw

For the back of mouth and the point where my daughter would be looking out of, I used some cable ties to attach some sheer black fabric to the face guard. I have a full ghillie suit I use for hunting and there was always too much fabric for the face, so I trimmed enough off of that to use here.

To cover the jaw I started with some of the salmon fabric to use as the inside of the mouth, and then sewed the faux fur fabric to make a "sock" to go over the jaw. I didn't have a form of any sort, so it was just some trial and error getting the shape right before sewing it together.

Step 4: Covering the Headpiece - Snout

I used more of the salmon fabric for the inside of the mouth like the bottom, and created a little black nose by sewing a square of foam from a knee pad that I wasn't going to use. With a lot more trial and error I managed to make a cover that fit nicely over the foam nose and helmet. With a needle and thread I stitched this new piece to the jaw piece.

Before covering the back of the helmet I drilled a couple 1/4" holes in the helmet where I wanted the ears. The chopsticks fit into these holes and then I pushed the ears onto the chopsticks. Now I fastened to rear section to the helmet with some hot glue and I was ready to do the ears. Using the salmon fabric again I made covers for the ear forms I made with the sewing machine.

No red fox can be a red fox if it's tan, so it was time to do a little paint work. I masked off the mouth and the front of the nose to keep it tan with some plastic wrap and used the fabric spray paint for the red color. It looked pretty good with tan under the red and added a lot of dimension.

Step 5: Covering the Headpiece - Eyes and Ears

I cut some of the salmon fabric into trapezoids to create the eye lids/brows. I used the hot glue gun to attach the eyes to the head and then stitched the lids to the head.

I cut two pieces of the pvc tube about an inch long and painted them silver with the model paint. Once dry these slipped over the chopsticks between the head and the ears, giving it a look of the ears being on metal rods.

Step 6: Covering the Headpiece - Teeth

For the teeth I needed something easy to attach and lightweight. I took an x-acto knife handle and hot glued a dime to the end. I then put a big glob of hot glue on the dime and without touching it, spun it slowly and let gravity form a little pointy glob. Perfect teeth!!

Once I made a bunch of them I painted them all flat white. This work out great and the variation in sizes gave me the opportunity to arrange them in the mouth by size. The character in the video game has had some of it's teeth replaced with metal, so covered several in aluminum foil for the metal look. Another glob of hot glue on the bottom of each tooth and they stuck right to the inside of the mouth.

The head was now complete and it was time to move on to the body!!!

Step 7: Modify the Chest Piece and Cover It.

Looking at the original football protector I really felt it would just look like a hairy football player from the 70's, so I wanted to trim it down. I first cut the flaps from the shoulders, leaving just the chest/back piece. I took the smallest flap from the outside of each arm and reused it, moving it to the top. I fastened these using heavy duty twine and then sewed some razor knee protectors below them for upper arms.

I covered the hard parts with the tan fur. This was a lot more trial and error with the sewing machine and fabric pieces to get it right. I wanted the black fabric from the protectors to show through and only cover the plastic parts. Once I had the shapes right I hot glued them to the guards. Once that was done I sprayed the entire thing with the fabric paint.

Step 8: The Hook

My daughter wore this to school, so for an unusual hook that was also safe around a bunch of 5th graders I wanted something that could bend rather than puncture. I discovered the dehumidifier drain hose fit through the percolator. I cut a piece to run through it and curve and then took about 20 pipe cleaners (as many as I could fit in the hose), twisted them up and ran them through the hose. I bent it into a hook and.....EPIC FAIL! It snapped right back straight. The hose was too rigid for the pipe cleaners to hold a curve. Then I took a piece of copper grounding wire and made a hook shape to run through the center of the hose now. It won't bend easily, but it's covered with a lot of cushion and rubber hose.

Step 9: Finishing Touches

In the game, Foxy has been damaged from different confrontations, so that's why she has a hook. I also added tears and claw marks on the fur and the khaki pants.

For some information on Five Nights at Freddy's go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Nights_at_Freddy's

I hope you like this and if so, please vote for this is the Halloween Costume Contest, and be sure to check out my Skull Lava Lamp in the Halloween Decor Contest. Thanks!