I decorated our minivan for my girls’ Halloween trunk or treat event at school. The pinnacle of the design was a large dragon head in our trunk!

I found a few DIY ideas online, but they were either too small for what I had in mind or were too detailed for my full-time-working-mom-of-three Halloween time crunch. I wanted the jaws to be able to open and close, so my first goal was to have a sturdy yet lightweight structure. I also want to be able to build it fairly quickly and without much expense. I determined a Styrofoam frame with paper mâché would meet all my criteria, and the result was exactly what I had set out for!

The dimensions of the finished piece are 32” x 28” x 25”. The jaws can open to a height of 37"!

Supplies

Frame:

Molded Styrofoam (or paper) packaging – I was fortunate that my husband recently bought a new TV! You might want to check with local electronic stores if they have packaging they are disposing of
Wooden dowels
Cardboard and/or Tag board – Empty chip or cereal boxes work great
Flexible foam packaging
Large, serrated knife
Painters’ tape
Wood glue – I used Titebond II for its strength and slightly shorter dry time than others
Plastic bags or other fill (optional)

Paper Mâché:

Brown packing paper
Newspaper
Brown paper towels
Glue – I used the rest of the Titebond II for this, but Elmers’s would have been fine
Paint – I used brown, white, and black tempera
Small/medium paint brush
Flat artist brush for detail
Nitrile gloves (optional)

Eyes:

Reading glasses – lenses (dollar store)
Acrylic paint – I chose black, neon green, and yellow
Glue – I used quick-dry fabric glue, hot glue would ruin the paint detail

Teeth/Mouth:

Large popsicle sticks
Rolls from toilet paper or paper towel
Paint – I used white, yellow, and black tempera
Scissors
Hot glue
Scrap piece of wood framing and red tissue paper for the tongue/flames (optional – skip this part if you’re going for a more dinosaur look)
Fishing line (optional)
Black duct tape (optional – I used this to attach the jaws together for them to hinge)

Step 1: Build the Frame/Armature

To start, you'll need four pieces of solid Styrofoam, although molded paper would work too. I cut two long pieces in half to achieve this. I found that a long, serrated bread knife worked best to cut with. If you're really at a loss for finding molded Styrofoam or paper forms large enough for your project, you might want to consider corrugated cardboard to create large circular or triangular tubes.

To create the initial jaw formations, I took the four Styrofoam pieces to form two "V" shapes. I chose to make the top “V” (for the top of the head) wider than the bottom. I stuck wooden dowels into the opening of the V's with glue to secure the form, and glued together the point of the V's. You might need to wrap the forms overnight with wire or twine to get the shape to hold until the glue dries. Mine balanced pretty well in an upside-down V.

Next I added more structure to the armature, in order to support paper mâché. I used a piece of cardboard to round out the front of the lower jaw. I used an empty chip box to round out the upper jaw and add nostrils. I used painters’ tape to help hold things in place while the glue dried overnight. To fill in the gaps, I glued in toilet paper tubes, extra bits of solid Styrofoam, and flexible foam.

I also wanted the top of the head to have a more rounded look so, after the underside of the top jaw was fleshed out and dry, I stuffed the top of the head with plastic packing bubbles and plastic bags. I taped a scrap piece of material over the top to keep the shape, but another plastic bag could have been used. It's looking really good!

Step 2: Layer on Paper Mâché

Once the frame had fully dried, I started adding paper mâché. Each layer consisted of two strips of 2-3” paper that was torn with the grain of the paper – you can tell if you’re tearing with the grain of the paper if it’s easier to make strips. Try both ways on a test piece to determine the grain. I used a 50/50 mixture of wood glue and water, but you could use regular Elmer's in place of the wood glue. If you go with wood glue, I recommend using nitrile gloves; the wood glue turned my fingernails yellow the first layer! My girls were horrified! :D

The first full layer was brown packaging paper, as it had more strength to lay across small gaps in the frame. My next two layers were newspaper and (to save time) I focused on covering areas that did not have solid foam underneath, to add more durability. I also took care to place each layer in the opposite direction, as that adds strength. My final layer was brown paper towel. I felt it provided more texture and the brown color likely reduced the time required to paint over multicolor newspapers. You can add a few layers of paper mâché without drying in between, but the paper needs to dry fully before painting.

Had I more time, I would have added folds of paper mâché around where I would eventually glue the eyes, to make eyelids and menacing eyebrows. You could also hot glue wooden beads of various sizes to create ridges above the eyes and nostrils. Get creative with it and add as much detail as you’d like!

Step 3: Paint

I started with a base coat of black on the inside of each of the jaws and a base coat of lighter brown on the outside. At this point it looks like it could be a giant panther! 1980s Battle Cat/Cringer from He-Man, anyone? "I... have... the power!"

Once that was dry, I added black detail on top of the head and lower jaw to define the areas around the eyes and to add more depth to the facial expression. I came through with a darker brown using just a flat brush in certain places to give the look of scales. Green and gray are also great choices! You might want to consider using bubble wrap to create a texture stamp to add the look of bumps.

Step 4: Eyes, Teeth, Flames, and Finish!

Eyes

For the eyes I purchased some round reading glasses from the nearby dollar store, and carefully popped the lenses out.
It’s imperative that you use acrylic paint on glass or plastic, so the paint is thick enough to adhere well. I started with black to create reptile-looking pupils and a black outline around the outside edge. I chose neon green as the main color, but glow in the dark is a good choice too (or both)! Once the first color was fully dry, I painted a solid green circle around the pupils and then a transparent green circle around that, to make it look like it was speckling into the last color. Last I painted solid yellow over the transparent green areas and out to the black edge. I think they turned out great!
I used fast-drying fabric paint to adhere them to the dragon head. Hot glue would have smeared the paint and I didn’t want to chance it.

Teeth I created two types of teeth – 10 for the front teeth and about 18 for the back teeth (4 larger “canine” teeth and 14 smaller).

For the front teeth I cut “sharpish” edges on one end of large popsicle sticks. For the back teeth I used a paper towel roll for the larger 4 teeth and toilet paper rolls for the rest. I cut the paper towel roll in half, and then all the rolls I cut in half lengthwise. I cut each roll end to a dull point.
I painted all the teeth with a yellow-white and let dry.
I cut slits in the paper mâché and used hot glue to secure the front teeth. For some of them I also wrapped the end in a strip of black construction paper to help stabilize its position within the paper mâché.
I used black paint on the base of each of the back teeth (since they stuck out further into the jaw and would be visible to anyone looking inside the mouth). I glued the side of each back tooth to the inside of the jaw, so the tallest point of each tooth faced the front. This way, they look like teeth both from a straight-on view of the head as well as from a side-view. I’m thrilled how they turned out!

Flames I cut a scrap piece of wide wood frame down to size and used packaging tape to cover it with red tissue paper, having it stick out at the front and shagging it out in places to look like flames. I used black tape to secure it to the back of the mouth, where the two jaws came together. Then I suspended the front of the board from the inside of the upper jaw using fishing line, so the flames would be more animated when the jaws were opened. I used a staple to attach the fishing line to the tongue and black-taped the top of the line to the top/inside of the mouth. I clear-taped shaggy red tissue paper coming out the nostrils as well. If you’re going for a more dinosaur look, you can skip this step.

Finish! I aligned the two jaws the way I liked and then taped the inside and outside of the meeting point with black duct tape so they would have the flexibility but strength to hinge. I attempted to use to fishing line with a pulley system to open and close the top jaw, but the last role of fishing line available at the hardware store wasn’t strong enough. However, I used the VITA app to create a private YouTube short of whooshing, snarling, and roaring flames clips. YouTube shorts are only 1 minute long and loop continuously, which is exactly what I needed. I also purchase a mini LED sound-activated strobe light from Amazon that gave a really great effect in the dark!

I hope you come up with your own ways to make your dragon head even better! Happy crafting!