# My version of a skull tree how-to



## Sickie Ickie (Jun 20, 2006)

Well, I guess I've ben asked enough questions about how I built this to warrent a how-to.

Since this is actually an extremely easy project to build, it may take away some of the magic from it- but I hope not. heh










The base is just a plastic pail. I was looking for the right pot for the longest time, but when I finally found them they ranged from 8-20+ dollars. Heck I don't have that kinda moola, so I used what was available around the house. I removed the metal handle by just spreading the arms and it popped right out.

The trunk is just a rolled up water hose I bought at menards for 4.99. I looked for a large sized wire, but the prices were way out of my range. I still think it would have been nice to bend it however I needed at any given time, but th best laid plans of madmen..or something like that... heh I cut the hose to length, and realized I needed some stability in it, so after trying coathangers and a variety of other items I had a brainstorm of...

Rebar! LOL I had it lying around anyway. The idea worked well. It was a b*itch bending rebar, folks- but I'll bet with the proper tools it wouldn't be bad. I sild it inside the hose and had to attach it to the ...










Head, which I had already made. I'm extremely proud of this actually as I think I came up with a totally original technique. I would be exremely flattered if it became known as "Sickie Ickie's HG corpsing!" 

I already had a $3.00 desktop plastic model skull and neck I bought at IS, so I posed the skull with hot glue. Busted of the single molded upper and lower teeth, cut out certain teeth and hot glues the back on. I then melted red hot glue in a hot glue pot and used two disposable brushes to dab on the red hot glue over the skull. I made sure to keep the teeth "clean" and to allow plenty of strings to build.

When that was dry, I stained the white teeth to a more natural color.

I had to drill out the inside of the neck to accept the rebar and green hot glued the skull to the rebar and hose. _(At this time I still thought I was going to use a green stem...)_ OF course the stem still has to stand up which is why I had to










Cut wood fur stripping long enough to go across the inside diameter of the pot, then screwed it in from the outside and plenty of hot glue inside to hold it in place. Then a hole was drilled into the wood to accept the rebar/hose. Because the screws weren't positioned perfectly on the sides of the pot, the wood won't turn into an "axle." LOL

I found a package of faux fall leaves at the dollar store, bought a $2 florest wire roll, and green hotglued the wire as stems on the leaves. I then wrapped the wire around the trunk and green hot glued the florest wire both on the trunk and along the wire to add color and girth. The runners are just florest wire with green hot glue on them.

The pot and trunk are painted with acrylic 2 oz container paints. That's it folks. Basically a skull, trunk, leaves and wire, a pot and wood.

Oh yeah, the backgrond wood adds some counterweight and is really weathered from outside. Plus it hides the spout of the bucket.

Simple, yeah?


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## PerfessorEvil (Jul 18, 2007)

Nice and simple... I like it.
Have you thought about misting the skull with black or drybrushing? I think the contrast between the black and the red would look awesome.

Are you going to put this up on your website, or should I just link to the how-to here?


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## dflowers2 (Mar 5, 2007)

Sickie, that is very nice work. I had no idea you could get such a cool effect with hot glue. I'm gonna have to try it. I thought you actually had some kind of fiberous material in there. Very cool. I am gonna have to tey my hand at my own Sickie Ickie's HG corpsing. Thanks for sharing.


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## Ghastly Joker (Aug 4, 2007)

Looks like MEAT from Mortal Kombat 4, I like. I will have to make a red web shooter and try it on a skull.


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## Sickie Ickie (Jun 20, 2006)

Thanks folks.  I had a blast making it and am trying to refine the technique even more.

Professor, I'll get it up on my site tomorrow and will let you know through your most awesome site! I'm thrilled with the results. I plan on trying your idea for higher contrast very soon! Tired of me marking the dead links on your site yet? LOL I must find a dozen a week and flag them for ya. 

Absolutley let me in on photos when you do that Joker. I'd love to see it. If you need thr red glue sticks I have some offered here http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=7260 If you have your own already, go for it!

dflowers, neither did I. I got this brainstorm one day and decided to try it out. I'd be more than flattered for you to try it out and show the results!


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## PerfessorEvil (Jul 18, 2007)

Sickie Ickie said:


> Tired of me marking the dead links on your site yet? LOL I must find a dozen a week and flag them for ya.


Heh, thanks! Do me a favor though, and PM me your current IP address (go to www.whatismyip.com if you don't know it, that will tell you)

I get an awful lot of web bots coming through marking things as dead, so once a week (it's a pain), I look at any project with three "Dead" link reports. I check the project, and if it is really dead, I move it to the Dead links section. If it's alive, and a site like Geocities that has temporary outages, I just zero out the dead link count.

If it's just plain alive, I zero it out and add the IP to my "IP Ignore" list, and no matter how many times that IP tries to flag something, it doesn't count.

I just want to make sure your IP isn't on that banned list, either from a site that was temporarily down and up by the time I looked at it, or because I hit the wrong button.

I suppose I could change the code to actually let people know if that is happening... Yeah, I'll do that one of these days.

Oh, and thanks for putting your latest two on HauntProject! Approved.


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## Sickie Ickie (Jun 20, 2006)

Thanks for the approval, Prof.  My IP addy has been PMed for your perusal. heh


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## Hauntress (Aug 30, 2007)

Very neat. I've been looking for something to use on my front walkway, and this seems really straightforward and easy. Thanks!


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## DeathTouch (Sep 6, 2005)

Makes me want to puke...


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## Bone Dancer (Oct 7, 2005)

It looks great Sic. I dont know why, but every time I see that skull I think of those red candied apples. Weird. I agree with the black high lites too.


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## Sickie Ickie (Jun 20, 2006)

Bone Dancer said:


> It looks great Sic. I dont know why, but every time I see that skull I think of those red candied apples. Weird. I agree with the black high lites too.


LOL I could totally see this in a bushel basket with others!


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## Lilly (Jun 13, 2006)

I like the stringy look on yur skull also ...good work !!
woohoo for hot glue


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## Toktorill (Sep 15, 2007)

Thank you very much... it looks deliciously disgusting!


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## Sickie Ickie (Jun 20, 2006)

LOL I love the look, and have refined my SI HG Corpsing even more now.


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