# Zombie Build How-To 1 and 1/2 dead men



## Sytnathotep

Hello Folks! This is my first How-To I though I'd Share. This is the basic workflow of the first zombie/corpse I've every tried to build. I used methods found here and around the web, but not any single one of them as I tried to combine the best aspects of all the methods I had seen. And as always, you follow this at your own risk! I'm not responsible for injury or death from following my steps, its for demonstration only. I hope you guys enjoy and find it helpful.

Ok, Then goal. What I wanted out of this was a corpse/zombie that could be posed mainly for use in photography (think Pumpkinrot's Freak Show Zombies from Last year) and a static Halloween prop second. I wanted to look creepy and realistic without being cheesy, have a good degree of movement for a static prop, and most important, be every cheap to make!

To begin, as I have done nothing of this sort before, I felt it wise to test the waters so to speak and start small. So I decided to start with a half corpse, being only torso, arms, and head. If that didn't fail epically, then I'd go for a full body corpse.

So lets get to it. I began with the spine. Since this guy is a crawler, and not needing to hold his weight, I went with a wire spine for flexibility. Having a much of scrap materials around, I used some second - hand 12/2 electrical wire. I cut three pieces about 3 feet long, taped the ends together, placed it in a vice, and braided the three together. I took this wire braid, and slipped a 3/4 inch pvc cross fitting over it to about to where the shoulders should be. I left enough for the neck to stick a skull on, always making things longer so it could be trimmed off if needed. I added two pieces of 3/4 pvc pipe for the shoulder-arm joints to the cross piece.

I used this method here at that point Here and have to say it works really well. I found however that I could simply heat the pipe with my heat gun in no time, makes no smoke/fumes, and can easily be shaped. No need for torches, heated rods, or any of that! Heat gun allowed me to make all the ends quickly and safely.










Next, the rib cage. Which I can tell you know after the fact was total overkill. IF I do this again, I'm not going to all the trouble, as you don't really see it in the final result. For the second zombie, I used a much similar method. That being said, this is what I did the first round.

I took a few close hangers (a buck or two from a dollar store) and cut them and straightened them. I laid them out on a table and arranged them into a frontal ribcage fashion. I duck taped them together where the sternum would be so I could keep everything in place as I picked it up and attached the floppy mess onto the spine. I bent the close hanger wires to shape and ran them through the braids of the spine to fasten.










At this point i made the collar bones and scapula (shoulder blades). Collar bones are more 12/2 wire, and the scapula were pieces of 1 inch foam insulation board crudely cut to shape, then warped with the heat gun. These were then taped on with oh-so trusty duck tape.










After that I crudely wrapped them all with cheap duck tape to give them volume. This took time and I wouldn't do this for a zombie again, but I think the results would be great for a scratch built skeleton where you'd see the effort.










Next, the arms! and a slight departure from the 'Spawn of Articulation' method. I wanted my guy to have working hands. what I did here, was take another scrap of 12/2 wire, folded it over and twisted it together, and slipped 1/2 inch pvc over it.










Next post....


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## Sytnathotep

I left a gap between the upper-lower arm for the bend of the elbow, and the separated out the wires for the fingers that stuck out the end. I can't stress enough, use extra wire at this point. If you get your finger wire too short your have a headache, so make it extra long.










I found that depending on how tight your twisted your wire, the pvc pipe may or may not slip on the wire. to keep it in place, I heated the ends at the elbow with the heat gun, and crimped them with vice grips while hot. Make a nice tight grip on the wire.










At this point, I basically followed this method for creating the hands. 
I took cheap ink pens, and cut the tubes to size, slipped them over the wire and duck taped the whole mess together. See the link for more details.


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## Sytnathotep

And here, giving the completed armature a test run, so far, so good. Next up corpsing! More to come!!


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## Sytnathotep

First Up, the head. Got this skull at Walgreens for six bucks. I saw however that Big Lots has the same one, but for ten dollars or more. Anyhow, I bored a hole in the base and stuck it onto my wire neck. I just used extra plastic while corpsing to keep it firmly attached.










Alright, as far as corpsing goes, I went with the "Plastic Corpsing' method my Stiltbeast. All I can say is wow, fast, easy, cheap, no mess. I could have followed is method for painting/staining and been done here, but I wanted more of the Pumpkinrot zombie look, so after applying the plastic, I went into a different direction.
For the eyes, I used the deodorant ball trick. Stuck them in with latex paint soaked cheesecloth.



















As I was going for a different look, the clear plastic had to go. Also, I found that it turned white in thicker areas. So i painted the whole thing black using spray paint for plastic surfaces. However, on the second zombie, I saved myself a lot of time and eliminated this step by corpsing with black garbage bags instead.


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## Sytnathotep

And next, came the messy part that brought it all together. With a mix of black latex house paint, and elmers glue about 50/50, I soaked cheesecloth, and Halloween spider webs, and stretched out and applied all over him in a gooey mess. Use this to make the effect of rotting hanging flesh, as well as nasty matted hair hanging in his face.



















The final step was dry brush painting. Using cheap craft paints, I made up off tinted white colors of green, red, browns, and purple and brushed over him catching the high areas. I tried to do this unevenly to give it variety and detail. After that dried a bit, I gave it the slightest dry brush of pure white. After this he got a good heavy coat of gloss water based clear coat from my paint sprayer and I called him done. Here is some pics of him finished.




























Next up, the build of the full bodied, full size, posable, free standing zombie.


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## weaz

I really like the look of this guy. Nice job on the tutorial.


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## beelce

Very very nice..................


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## DarkLore

They look great. I'm not sure how elmers glue and spider webbing turned into that wormy stringy mess...but the texture is great.


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## kevin242

looks awesome, who said duct tape can't fix that?


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## Sytnathotep

Thanks for the remarks so far everyone!



DarkLore said:


> They look great. I'm not sure how elmers glue and spider webbing turned into that wormy stringy mess...but the texture is great.


Man a little goes a LONG way. Cut off a little piece from the rope it comes in, dip it in the elmers/paint, get it good and saturated, THEN stretch it like you'd typically use it over the corpse. Try to hook it over High points, twist it, wrap it around the corpse and itself. I'd stick loose ends into holes in the plastic to keep it from falling off. With the paint in it, its heavy, and doesn't stick too well, but once dry, its kinda hard and glued pretty well.


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## Sytnathotep

kevin242 said:


> looks awesome, who said duct tape can't fix that?


Exactly. If someone DID dare say that, then they are a liar. :googly:


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## RoxyBlue

LMAO at the corpse mowing your lawn

You got a wonderful look with your methods. The stringy hair was well worth the mess of putting it on him.


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## Spooky1

He looks great. I love the textures you got with the webbing and cheese cloth.


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## Dixie

What a great mixture of so many tutorials and methods - just really goes to show that we all need to be posting tuts, since someone might even use just one technique from yours, along with others, and come up with something great like this!

I just love it - the rope spine thing gets me every time, blehhhhch! Great texture, colors, good proportion (which is so important!) its all great!


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## Sytnathotep

RoxyBlue said:


> LMAO at the corpse mowing your lawn


Sadly with no legs he can't use the pedals and did a terrible job of mowing lol



Dixie said:


> ...good proportion (which is so important!) its all great!


Thanks! I feel I nailed the proportions on this guy, which sadly I feel I didn't get down as well on the full body one coming up next.


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## Sawtooth Jack

Since I am in groundbreaker mode myself, I just found this how-to. don't know how I missed this last year, but these are awesome. The crawling pic is wild!


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## Otaku

What Jack said. How did I miss this last year? Excellent work!


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## phillipjmerrill

This tutorial is great! I would be interested to see any pictures of your second, full corpse showing the changes in your method that you mentioned. This tutorial is very helpful and the finished product looks awesome.


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## remylass

Somehow, I missed this thread too. I really like this idea. The stringy bits just sell the whole thing. Great job.


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## VexFX

Turned out great, and now you have some help with your yard-work!


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## KevinRI

Wow what a great job! You really got a great expression on its face. Those eyeballs really add a whole new dimension of creepy!


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## Sytnathotep

Heya Folks! Sorry it's been so long. After getting busy during the holidays, I completely forgot to finish up on part two! Thanks for the thread bump, as it has reminded me and got my butt in gear! lol

Ok, to business. The full sized zombie. The goal here, like before, was to have a posable static prop for photography, and as a haunt prop. Also with this guy, I wanted him free standing, all or mostly all on his own.

I'd have to say now that its finished, that I am less pleased with this one that the last one. I feel that he came out a bit to big, or too big for his head and hands anyway. Also, I don't care for the way the shoulders turned out. That said, I am very happy with the effect and creepiness of this guy standing on his own in the yard, leering at the house.

So to begin.
For this guy to stand on his own, I knew that the flexible wire braid spine from the last one wouldn't work here. So he has a full pvc spine, cut an assembled that same way. Again I used the heat gun to heat and bend the pipe into the spinal curve shape. This is most important, not just for looks. Bending it this way changes his center of gravity to be over the legs once the ribcage is on, like it does with a human. If it where left straight, it would fall forward and never balance.

Also, I have to mention, for those who may not know about it, this web tool is great for calculating out the length of your pipe for the right proportions of a humanoid figure. Also has calculators for bat wings and spiders and other fun stuff. Bookmark it!
http://zombietronix.com/calculator_biped.php

And the image of the spine.









And here is the completed frame. I used the same method for the arms here as I did the first guy, so nothing new there. I did basically the same with the legs, flattened pvc bolted together with lock washers. As you see, its got a good range of motion so far.










The the ribcage. After doing the first one, I felt was I did was overkill as most was not visible in the final result. So, instead on this guy, I made the basic shape with old 12/2 wire, and covered with chicken wire to support the plastic later.










Here is the shoulder blades. Twisted wire into the basic shape, filled in with duck tape. Ahhhhhh... duck tape. Ahem, anyhow...


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## Sytnathotep

The Pelvis. took two closet hangers, bent them into kinda question mark shaped thingies, and duck taped them on. All i can say at this point is have a reference and make up the basic shapes with what you have. All you really need to worry about here is that you have that bowl shape that the human pelvis has.










At this point I started using sheet plastic for the rest of the underlying form. I'd cut it off in foot wide strips a few feet long, and twist it into ropes. I'd wrap it around and tie it to the frame at the ends. I did this for the ribs, and also for the bones of the for arm. I then too the heat gun to this. As the plastic in the rope shape is rather thick, it doesn't sag was much as just the sheet, and becomes kinda rigid once cool. And it doesn't matter how pretty it looks, as sheet plastic corpsing is going over it anyway.



















And, at last the corpsing. Stiltbeast method like before, but as I mentioned before, I saved myself a munch of time by using black garbage bags, and skipping the set of spray painting.


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## Sytnathotep

Then came the glue-paint soaked cheesecloth-webbing. Just like before.










And paint. same method as done before.










And some test shots! First one, standing outside. To give him more stability, (soft breeze kept knocking him over) I attached a piece of scrape plyboard to each foot to give it a wider base, and stacked him to the ground though said boards with six inch nails. That did the trick. It will stand on his own!










Here he is lurking around the road, and in the yard. "There is a zombie on the lawn, doo-bee-do-be-dooo..."


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## Sytnathotep

And here he is leering behind a tree in my yard haunt, with half- zombie crawling around with the tombstones.



















Thanks everyone for following this!! And be warned, this won't be the end! I'll have new how-to's of my Flying crank ghosts to show off, tombstone builds, and coming soon, attack of the flying vampire zombie cat0-bat! *gasp* lol

Thanks everyone I hope you enjoy!


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## Joiseygal

That is a incredible job from scratch!


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## RoxyBlue

That photo of him standing alone forward of the tree in that green lighting is just fantastic. He looks surreal and life(death?)like.

You may not be entirely happy with his proportions but I think they really add to the unnerving look he has. That's the beauty of making creatures like this - you can deviate somewhat from the norm and have it turn out quite successful.

And LOL at the reference to Plants vs Zombies


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## sickNtwisted

Great effect! Love how he turned out, gore-geous!


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## Bethene

I am one that also missed the first tutorial,, dang,, love that guy, love the stringy hair effect!!
and the stand up one is so creepy standing there,,, dang, one more thing to add to the list of things I want to do/have! 
thank you for posting this!


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## Acererak

Your corpses look fantastic. How well does the latex paint/glue hold up in rainy weather?


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## Sytnathotep

I've seen some flaking around often flexing parts of the plastic (hands, elbows, exc.) But where the webbing/cheesecloth was soaked and applied, its held up great! They were out in thunderstorms last fall and are just fine.


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## CreeepyCathy

loving it!!!! Super creeepy!


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## SinisterSmitty

Very Awesome! Now I have to let my husband buy the riding lawn mower so I can have a half-zombie landscaper, ha ha.


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## SkullyBones

That thing is wicked! I really enjoyed reading the tutorial and seeing the end result. The process looks simple enough. I think this one is going on my future projects list too!


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## Pumpkin5

:jol:Sytnathotep, those are two cool props!!! I missed this thread earlier, much like many of the other forum members, but the first prop, with the 'swamp funk' hanging all over him is just so great! I love the standing guy as well. They look like one of the 'skelerectors' you can buy for from the expensive prop companies for $700 to $1200 plus. Thanks for sharing such creative tips.


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## ithurt

I love the spine all hanging out on the ground breaker, sweet!


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## Copchick

Wow! They are absolutely cool! I just love all of the strands of webbing and cheesecloth hanging all over them. Like RoxyBlue, I like the picture of him in the green lighting by the tree too. It's great to see the start to finish project working out to looking so awesome! I'll definately be referencing to your tutorial. Thanks! :jol:


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## Darkmaster

Nice work on these!


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## wdGoof

What a great looking prop. How much does it weigh? I am working on a prop with a corp/zombie coming out of the wall..All of my ettempts so far have turned out to heavy for the motor.


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## Lord Homicide

i love this thing man... i'm stealing it


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## funkyfried

wow. i really want to try this


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## Sytnathotep

wdGoof said:


> What a great looking prop. How much does it weigh? I am working on a prop with a corp/zombie coming out of the wall..All of my ettempts so far have turned out to heavy for the motor.


The half zombie is around 8 pounds. The full size zombie is around 17 pounds.

Thanks everyone for your comments, I'm glad you like these fellas.


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## hvacmac7

awesome job,im about to attempt some motor driven zombies and think your corpsing technique(and stiltbeast) is on point


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## vamp_girl

wow that looks neat. Looks like alot of work so I wont be making one but might make my bf make me one lol haha


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## yeloowtang

awesome !!! can't wait to try this out..i now have new projects to play with  thanks

steff


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## epoweredrc

well I have started making one, but have to ask what is the "Plastic Corpsing' method my Stiltbeast?????

im guessing that is a member here? got a link. like to know what was used to cover him all up with thanks


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## Sytnathotep

Stiltbeast, aka Allen H here on the forum, is da man when it comes to making props on the ghetto cheap budget basically out of trash. lol Check out his Youtube Channel He usally posts a video every Wednesday. Seeing him work will feel you with a mixture of amazement, envy, and a bit of rage for not thinking of it yourself. :googly: The man has made dead animal props out of used dryer lent for Pete's sakes! 

His technique I used here is basically melting trash bags with a heat gun to create the corpse's 'skin' You can see his


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## epoweredrc

thanks i just watched it on my phone WOW no way that was killer. i can not believe the outcome of it. I got to try that.... way cool thanks again


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## TheAsylumAZ

Sick looking finished product, may build one this year.


-TheAslyumAZ


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## Queen of Darkness

_*So awesome !*_


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## Lizzyborden

Great job! I'm looking up the plastic corpsing video now!

Lizzy


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## [email protected]

Wow, this is great for your first corpse. I am a newbie prop builder and trying to figure out how to do the rib cages. This is a great tutorial.Thanks.


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## BrainSkillet

This is a great tutorial! I think I am finally ready to take on making one of these guys and this is really helpful! I love the drop cloth / plastic bag corpsing technique and use for everything now.


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## hpropman

great tutorial I love these guys - I have to try this


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## smileyface4u23

I love these guys! Their eyes, paint job, corpsing, etc., are all just amazing. One of these is going on the list for next year!


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## Maarkb

Wow it really looks great!!


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## forevermy3

Holly Crap! that looks good!


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## Monk

impressive


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## Schizodeluxe

That looks awesome! I might try this! Thanx!


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## ghostesswiththemostess

Awesome! Very realistic!


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## Fletch350z

I know this is an old thread, but I am super impressed with this! Amazing work!


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## S L A M

^^^Agreed. I have not seen this one before. Thanks for bumping it! And awesome prop	
Sytnathotep! That turned out amazing!


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## Fletch350z

I've literally been trolling through all the old threads for a while being amazed by some of the stuff I've seen on here. It's all new to me, haha.


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## swede5342

Nice.........good idea on the electric cable! I might have to steal that idea!


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## madmomma

I've read through this thread many times in the past couple of years and have decided to finally give it a try this year. You did a great job with the zombies!

Costco doesn't have any skellys in yet but I keep checking. Can't have too many :xbones:


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