It has been great to be a part of this forum that loves Halloween. This forum really helps keep the Halloween spirit going throughout the year. Every Halloween I want to do a yard haunt and I want to make each Halloween better than the next whether it is decorations, movies or anything I absolutely love Halloween! So I am going to college this year so I was not able to make a giant yard haunt like I was last year but I still wanted to do a yard haunt so I simply made one prop.
Here is the very detailed step by step Cloaked Ghost for you to enjoy and to be a part of your Halloween!
Cloaked Ghost
I have this empty lot across from me and I really wanted to do a sort of a grim reaper or cloaked ghost for my yard haunt and that will be the only prop I have out this year in my yard. That being said I remembered there was a very old hockey net that was just simply left in the woods for years so I decided to use the pvc from that. When doing that I took apart the pvc and connected two long poles together and screwed them together to make a straight pole that was about 5ft high. Next I searched the lot and I found a really long board that had rusty nails in it and all sorts of bugs. So I cleaned it off and I decided that this will be heavy enough to hold up my prop. So at the base of my prop I screwed two screws down into the pole to make the pole stand up. Next I spray painted the entire pole black. After spray painting the pole black I bought a 1X2 board and used that as the main shoulder part for my prop.
Next step after you have the top should part is to add on the shoulder and arms. When looking at the tutorial that I based this on I had troubles because it was not as clear on some of the photos so this prop actually took me longer than it should have. When I looked at the photo for a long time I finally saw that the shoulder and arm were nailed in like this:
Here is another view:
After you screw in the shoulder and the arm onto that main board what you need to do is position the board up higher so that the Ghost's arm is raised when he is holding his arm. To do this I made sure I screwed in a support piece of wood underneath the arm to support it.
Now that I screwed in the support I was able to make the arm stay in place. Now when you see the nails on the side this is just some more support to help the arm.
After applying all of this it is now time to add on the rest of the arm which will be reaching out towards people and holding the lantern to as well. This was also used with a 1X2 board as well. So I simply nailed it right into the side of the board that was stretched outward with two nails to create this:
So now that you have one arm attached it will start to lean to the left. To fix this I simply cut part of an extra 1X2 and screwed it underneath the main board so that the Ghost's arms and shoulders are not leaning towards one side.
Next it is now time to add on the next arm. This arm is the right arm and will be slanted downward. So Just like on the previous arm skip the step of adding the upper arm and instead take the 1X2 and screw it right into the main board like so:
Now that you have done that it is time to add the hood of you Cloaked Ghost. So what you will need is some chicken wire and so I cut out about enough wire so that I could create a hood shape as well as wrap some of the wire around that base board to support it. So I did not like the way the wire was forming by just using my hand so what I did was stand on the board and I put the wire on a foam head and pressed the wire on the foam head to make the shape that I wanted to.
With this hood you want to make sure that you have a decent part that is forward to create that hood effect that you can't see the face. So make sure you have enough to have the hood moved forwards. Here is a side view:
Now to make sure that the hood is secure and is able to be very stable on the front of it. I took a wire coat hanger and stretched it out and simply formed the shape of the hood on the front to give it more support.
It is a gold wire on the front of the hood.
Now that you have the hood secure you also want to make sure you secure the hood on the back as of it as well. This is very simple to do. When you buy a roll of chicken wire it also comes with really long single strands of wire to tie it together. You can use these to tie to the upper back part of your hood and to that main base board to make sure that your hood is not leaning to far forwards or back.
After the hood is secure it is now time to put wire on the left arm. So you simply take chicken wire and wrap it around and squeeze it on the shoulder and part of the upper arm. After that you will take a separate wire and do the same thing a little bit farther down the arm.
After that now you can repeat the same step on the right arm with the shoulder as well.
I didn’t make the wire go all way down on the right arm.
Next you will want to paint the body all black so that it does not show. Do not paint the wire or it may show through the cheese cloth.
Next what I did was take some more pvc from the hockey net to make the send of the arm which is the forearm. When using a 1X2 board the pvc will fit on the end of the arms if you turn it over and over and it fits very snug. These will be important especially to have to hold your lantern! I just eyeballed it I did not do measurements on how far I wanted them to reach I wanted it to look normal.
Finally it is now time to drape the cheese cloth all over. I used all four packages of cheese cloth that I bought. It was well worth it. What I did was drape it right to left over the hood and around the shoulders. After that I made a circular motion on the arms. When wrapping the cheese cloth it is important that you don’t have it bunch up anywhere.
Next after that I stretched out the cheesecloth and made sure I had parts hanging down. Then I took scissors and cut them into strands so that it appears ripped near the arms and the bottom so that it will blow in the wind. I did not use any sort of sealant or monster mud. Instead I used nature. By that I mean I left the cloaked ghost out in the rain a few times on purpose since it was making the cloth have knots in it and it made it look even better that way in my opinion.
Now the ghost will not stand up as well so what I did was take a 2X4 and took another 2X4 I took the 2nd one and sawed it into two pieces. After that I nailed the two pieces at each end of the 1st 2X4. I repeated the same step. Once you do this you can lean them across each other and they will offer great support. With this being said it is important that you paint the boards black so that they do not show.
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With other parts of cheese cloth it is important as well that you wrap the pole over and over to make it appear that the ghost is floating. Once you do that it is important that you spray paint inside the hood to make it black with no face on the inside. It is also important that you paint the sides of the hood too as well so that there is no "face" on either side. When you use the spray paint it will have a tendency to go right through the cheesecloth so just add layers of the cloth on top of the hood.
Lastly since you have the pvc this will be very easy to cut with a saw. So I was able to find a lantern in my shed. So I simply fit the hook of this lantern in the pvc and it held it in place. Then I just wrapped cheese cloth around it and also in the pvc so make sure none of the pvc on either the right or left arm is showing.
Now lastly display and enjoy for Halloween!
