# TARGET animated "Wolf"?!



## Dreadnight (Jul 9, 2006)

I know several people have had great results creating my animated (reindeer motor) wolf by using the body and even sometimes the head of the xmas reindeer, rather than the more expensive taxidermy wolf form. Well, I was wandering thru TARGET's Halloween section and of course, disturbingly, there was the Xmas stuff all on display right next to Halloween. What should my wondering eyes behold, but a white wire-frame animated Polar Bear! Looking at it, the body shape and size are very suitable for a wolf (I think the legs would have to be thinner) and by just extending the snout out a little bit, you've got yourself the makings of a very good looking animated wolf. And no modification/attachment needed for the moving head.... it's already there!

Sometimes these Xmas folks just don't know how much they help us out...


----------



## Bone Dancer (Oct 7, 2005)

Shhhhhh Dreadnight, we have agents in their organization as we speak. How did you think these animated creatures came to be in the first place. Didnt you wonder why they were so easily hacked. Next year, a Santa that pops up out of a chimmney, think about it.


----------



## Sickie Ickie (Jun 20, 2006)

LOL Animated wire deer were in the Target section here. $20


----------



## Haunted Bayou (Feb 16, 2007)

Gee whiz for $20 I could maybe make something with it.
What am I saying? It'll never happen.


----------



## Dreadnight (Jul 9, 2006)

Next year, a Santa that pops up out of a chimmney, think about it.

MMMMMMmmmmmm... sort of a "Santarector", huh?


----------



## Sickie Ickie (Jun 20, 2006)

That sounded indescent.


----------



## Daphne (Oct 18, 2006)

Dreadnight, excuse the stupid questions but I don't have this all straight in my head. Do I understand the following correctly? 
1. You take the polar bear and cut sections off the face such that the taxidermist skull/teeth would fit there? Guessing you drill out the eyes in the taxidermist skull and replace them with eyes having LED's behind them? Where does one find these type of eyes by the way?

2. You cut sections of the legs out so they would be smaller and then stuff/cover the entire thing in paper mache and then fur?

I found this link of your wolf. http://www.halloweenfear.com/CJwolf2.html
It looks awesome but I am curious. Did you use the same fur for the face/legs and just cut it short or is it a different thing? It matches beautifully.

The website sounds like your dog's head goes up and down versus side to side. Does the polar bear move side to side? I'd think up and down would be more "dog-like". I think there are 2 sizes but I'd have to measure my German Shepherd to see how big a "regular" dog is ha, ha. Just out of curiosity, if you are cutting the legs up anyway, why would the smaller deer not be a better thing to use? You would still cut the face up but the legs would already be smaller?

There is a good chance I completely missed the boat on all of this entirely. If so, please help me out. So much to learn, so few days to build anything...

My daughters are still very upset that I am going to "kill" a singing Douglas fir tree. I can only imagine how they will take my cutting off a deer or polar bears face!!

Not touching the Santarector comment by the way...


----------



## slightlymad (May 25, 2006)

Ah Santarector YEAH BABY


----------



## Haunted Wolf (Apr 18, 2007)

Dreadnight said:


> What should my wondering eyes behold, but a white wire-frame animated Polar Bear!


What was the price on it?


----------



## Dreadnight (Jul 9, 2006)

> >>>Dreadnight, excuse the stupid questions but I don't have this all straight in my head. Do I understand the following correctly?
> 1. You take the polar bear and cut sections off the face such that the taxidermist skull/teeth would fit there? Guessing you drill out the eyes in the taxidermist skull and replace them with eyes having LED's behind them? Where does one find these type of eyes by the way?
> 
> 2. You cut sections of the legs out so they would be smaller and then stuff/cover the entire thing in paper mache and then fur?
> ...


Ahhhh, let me see... I'll take these one at a time:

Actually I wasn't thinking you'd have to use a taxidermy jaw & teeth. I would try to lengthen, not chop off the snout so it looks longer and more canine (lupine actually). Then I'd probably get some of the costume caveman tooth necklaces and cut those nice sharp teeth to various lengths and glue them into the jaws, after I figured out how to open the jaws up.

I think if you just cut the wire along the back of each leg, you could then "overlap" the leg wire and fasten with zip ties to make the legs thinner. It wouldn't take a lot.... it's just that the bear legs are kinda thick so they need adjustment.

You could use mache, or you may be able to get away with just covering the frame with the fur directly, maybe putting hot glue on the wire frame to attach it. The fur on my wolf was two kinds, a shorter gray nappy fur on the legs and the snout of the face, and a long black, silver tipped fur on the head, torso and ears.

The head, as far as I could tell, moves up and down on the polar bear as well. It wasn't plugged in at the Target. I agree the up and down is much better than side to side. As to using a reindeer body, it can be done and as I said I've seen people that get great results, but to me you want the wolf to be as big and menacing as possible. I just think the reindeer are kinda on the small side, which this bear is not.

The wolf eyes are available in various sizes from Van ****'s taxidermy (they are on the web), and I think they were actually called "coyote" eyes.

I hope that covered everything.... bear in mind, I've never made a wolf this way so I'm just sort of engineering this in my mind. Hope you give it a try.... it really adds to your haunt to have a slathering lycan greeting your visitors!

Sorry about the Santarector thing.... it just sounded like Skelerector to me so I couldn't pass it up


----------



## Dreadnight (Jul 9, 2006)

Haunted Wolf... i was afraid someone would ask that, since I didn't pay much attention. I "think" it was in the 30 dollar range. Of course now someone will post on here tomorrow that it's 49.95, but that's my recollection anyway


----------



## Daphne (Oct 18, 2006)

According to Target's website, the 30" high one is $39.99 and the 48" high one is $59.99. I am assuming we want the smaller one since the larger one would be like a wolf on steroids!

I checked both Target and Wal-mart today. Walmart had deer but no polar bears and Target didn't have Christmas stuff out yet. For fun, I asked when the polar bears would be out, I wanted one to chop up to turn into a wolf for Halloween. I used my spooky voice and the look on the guy's face was classic!


----------



## Dreadnight (Jul 9, 2006)

LOL! That's classic..... Wow what's up with Georgia? I thought it was a law in the U.S. now that Xmas stuff HAS to go out within no more than 24 hours of the Halloween Stuff!


----------



## buckaneerbabe (Jun 5, 2007)

I think it's happening here in So Cal too. I went to Target right after your first post and no X-mas yet. Wouldn't you know that when we actually want it to be out it's not!


----------



## Dreadnight (Jul 9, 2006)

Well, just come on up to Camarillo... Maybe the xmas stuff is working it's way down from the Bay Area to L.A.!


----------



## buckaneerbabe (Jun 5, 2007)

Just might have to. So when do you set up?


----------



## Daphne (Oct 18, 2006)

Shoot, I am not sure Christmas stuff doesn't go up BEFORE Halloween stuff. I checked a different Walmart today and it has bunches of deer but NO polar bears (and no fur that would work either). Any other year and everything would have been out weeks ago! I finally get a weekend where I may actually be off work and there are NO POLAR BEARS!! UGGG I even called outside my area to a Super Target and she told me to check back in 2 weeks!! TWO WEEKS! WHAT! I am running out of time...


----------



## buckaneerbabe (Jun 5, 2007)

Daphne, you could always wait till after x-mas get it for half off and have plenty of time to build your wolf for next year.


----------



## Daphne (Oct 18, 2006)

Great idea buckaneerbabe but here is the problem. I went ahead and bought a FCG from Xtreme Creators since I wanted to build it, a fence to keep people out of my cemetary, ScareFX's witch/cauldron and the 3 axis servo head like you made. My theory was I could build a couple or possibly more items since I didn't have to build the FCG. I now think I probably don't have a prayer for either the witch or 3 axis servo due to the learning curve combined with timeframe. The wolf presented a perfect prop. It doesn't sound too hard and I think I can knock it and the fence out in time. I was just whining because my job has been pretty intense recently so I am scared I am going to run out of time and will have built nothing. Everyone is posting with these awesome props and I am chomping at the bit to make one too.

I do plan to grab a reindeer or two during the after Christmas sales for the witch for next year though. I plan to start my witch during the Christmas/New Years break!


----------



## buckaneerbabe (Jun 5, 2007)

I see your problem, but I think that with a little luck you'll find that polar bear. You know where I saw that last year was at the cvs/sav-on drug store. That might be another place to look. I'll keep my eyes open for you at other chain stores to see what can be found.


----------



## Dreadnight (Jul 9, 2006)

NEWS FLASH! I was back in TARGET today and someone on this thread had asked if the head was an up and down - or a back and forth. Well, the Polar Bear was still not plugged in today but I managed to get a look from underneath at the motor and I confirmed that he is a Side to Side. Yeah, I know, the up an down is probably a little better animation, but having a wolf looking side to side, like it's sizing up a group of people isn't too bad either.


----------



## Daphne (Oct 18, 2006)

Buckaneerbabe, thanks for keeping your eyes open. My husband said "that sounds exactly like the one I saw at Home Depot last year" so that may be another option. Of course he then asked why I would want a wolf in my cemetery. Spouses...

Thanks for validating Dreadnight, I was the one asking about the motion. I do prefer the up/down but I expect I can live with side to side ha, ha. Having him face such that he is checking the crowd is a good idea.


----------



## Dreadnight (Jul 9, 2006)

Yeah, I think having him scan side to side with a really low, threatening growl for audio would be very effective... Good luck!


----------



## Daphne (Oct 18, 2006)

Thanks.

Hey, I found what looks to be the ultimate wolf (well minus the fact that it's back end is missing). 



 Bet we can't make the Target polar bear do this! I went to their site http://www.creaturefxinc.com/ and it is only available as a rental but it jumps forward too apparently. That would be one sweet prop! How about a how to on this one ha, ha?


----------



## Moon Dog (Oct 3, 2006)

Dreadnight said:


> Sometimes these Xmas folks just don't know how much they help us out...


Actually they're gearing up more towards Halloween... they just package it as X-mas stuff so our
spouses don't get so upset when we bring home yet another prop!


----------



## Daphne (Oct 18, 2006)

FWIW,

My local Target and Home Depot FINALLY put out the Polar Bears. Target had a sticker that said to display them the 16th so they just came out. I just got home from Destin on Tuesday and the Walmart there didn't have them out yet, I checked.

The good/bad news is that the small polar bear is only about $30 but it doesn't move. Apparently, the only one that moves is the 48" one. It was $69.99 at Home Depot and $59.99 at Target. There is about a 1% chance of my being able to get this thing together by Halloween but at least I have one secured now and wanted to tell anyone else that was looking to check again.


----------



## Dreadnight (Jul 9, 2006)

Daphne, congrats! Even if you can't do it this year, you'll enjoy the project... and the results!


----------



## Dreadnight (Jul 9, 2006)

By the way, the FEARnet.com folks were very interested in my wolf and shot a ton of footage on him. Hope it looks good in the Webisode...


----------



## Seanutz (Oct 18, 2007)

I dunno if you ramp up the speed with a side to side motion nail its feet down and reinforce certain areas, and then an arm or a leg in his maw...i think itd be pretty scary seein it thrash around like that....


----------



## Daphne (Oct 18, 2006)

Thanks Dread, I wish your how-to was still out there since I've never seen it (if you still have it and had time to email it, I would be happy to PM my address to you) Hopefully this won't be too difficult (famous last words). I do have a couple questions/assumptions for you to shoot holes in though.

1. Do I remove that fuzzy/white stuff they wrap it in to make it look more solid or just build on it? Obviously the white lights have to go. The sides and top of the back are flat so I will need to do paper mache or something to round them some. The facial reconstruction is what worries me the most.

2. What is the tail made of? I assume PVC joined together and covered in paper mache? 

3 Make ears out of wire and cover in mache?

2. As I recall, people are using a 50/50 mix of Elmers and water to do the paper mache with newspaper but what do you cover that with to seal it?

3. 3M spray adhesive or hot glue to attach the fur?

Wonder if it is possible to get a baby motor or something to make the jowls raise/lower like it is showing it's teeth/not showing it's teeth.... I guess servos would work maybe (talk about another can of worms I haven't dived in to yet) but don't you have to have the prop permanently attached to a computer to drive it? Wonder if there would be some way to rig up a deer motor in the chest and have it drive the jowls without having them pull up to the top of the wolfs head ha, ha. That would certainly freak people out!

Hey that is really cool on Fearnet.com! I have no idea what that is so I'll have to go check it out but it sounds great!


----------



## buckaneerbabe (Jun 5, 2007)

You know Daphne between you and dreadnight, I've put the first prop to be built for '08 as a wolf. I've always liked dreadnight's wolf and all this talk has made me want to try to build one too. I even scoped some reindeers out that I'll pick up at after holiday sales. This will be my first scary prop so it should be fun to try. We'll have to keep this thread going to share ideas, I can't wait to get started on 08 and I haven't even started to put out '07 stuff yet.


----------



## Daphne (Oct 18, 2006)

Buckaneerbabe, have you checked out the polar bears? Dread is right, there is alot more bulk there. I still have no real idea how I am going to go about all this but it does seem like a better starting point than the deer. Of course I have to start on it before Christmas so I don't get the "Why didn't you buy this AFTER" Christmas when it would be half price?" ha, ha. Speaking of, I should probably hide it until after I get my story straight! I plan to grab a couple deer to "slaughter" after Christmas for other props too.


----------

