Introduction: Making Your Very Own Friend! or at Least a Foam Dummy...

By
About: Hi everyone! Likely the most vocal member of Manufactured Fear, here. Welcome to our little twisted corner of the universe. We specialize in crafting the things that go bump in the night. And food, because ter…
So many great projects start with a need for a body. Since not everyone has unlimited numbers of friends willing to subject themselves to whatever horrors you may have in mind, I decided to share with your the secret to creating your very own friend. Who, if you don't give them a mouth, can't complain about any of the things you put them thru.

Step 1: Materials Needed

3-D Body Mold (We used a clothing display dummy)
Plastic Wrap
couple cans of Great Stuff spray foam
Something heavy to use as weights

Step 2: Laying the Plastic

This is definitely the most difficult part of this whole project. So patience and practice is needed to get it right. Pick the center of your mold and stretch the plastic till its about 6-8 inches past the front of your mold. You can't go too far past it. Better to have extra than not enough. Start pushing the plastic into the mold and holding it into place with your weights. Try and eliminate the big wrinkles and air pockets. Pick one side and repeat the same step as above, making sure to stagger the plastic to meet the sheet you already laid and to have enough to cover the sides with a little overhang to make it easy to pull out of the mold. Repeat again on the other side. 

Step 3: Foam!

Now that the hard part is over you can have a little fun. Well, fun to the easily entertained(like me). I chose to go to the grass to do this part, but you want to do this in an easy clean-up area, the foam sticks to anything and is almost impossible to get off. Follow the directions on the can for shaking it. From my trials, the longer you shake it the more you can get out of the can. 
When spraying the foam, squeeze the trigger all the way, line the edges of the mold first. Then loosely fill the middle. 

Step 4: Adding Depth

If you just need the rough outline of a body one cane of sprayfoam till be enough to give your body dimension. However if you need a little more solid body I like to use two canes. Letting the first can dry first. This will make the bodies thick enough to carve into.

Step 5: Demolding

Once the foam has set completely, just turn the bodies over and the foam and plastic wrap usually just slips out, if not just pull gently on the plastic till it releases. 

Step 6: Finishing

You can either pull out the plastic wrap from the foam or use a heat gun to melt it to the foam for the start of a corpsed look. If you're just using the foam to stuff clothing for dummies. If you use a heat gun, make sure to use a respirator or be in a well ventilated area as the melting foam can be pretty hazardous to your health. 

This is definitely still a work in progress. We'll be back soon with more ways to finish the foam into zombie bodies, corpses, and dummies. So keep an eye on this one!