# How to MacGuyver a Pyroach



## BoysinBoo

I agreed to help Papa Boo post a step by step of the building of Pyroach. He's got his hands full tring to finish our spider wiper.

Disclaimer: I took some of the photos, but haven't been around for all of the steps, so if you have questions, send them to Papa Boo, not me.


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## BoysinBoo

Found a small salvaged rear window wiper motor and built a mini "Scary Terry Kicking Legs" mech out of some wire coat hangers, a couple pieces of scrap wood, screws, and a few washers.










Okay, what now?










Cut and taped a 2 liter, 1 liter, and 16 oz pop bottle for the overall shape.

Looks like a really bad 80's science experiment.










A little more tape secures the body.


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## BoysinBoo

The motor sound is amplified by the plasctic funnel. Needed to add soundproofing.

Cotton Balls!

Spray glued to the outside gave soundproofing and a little better shape.










Doesn't look very creepy, yet. Buggish, yes. Creepy, no.










A little "EB Green" Duct Tape and twine ought to fix that.










Looks like we've got enough clearance inside for the mech.


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## BoysinBoo

Re-tested the mech. Doesn't move. Surgery Time.










The mech was fine. Loose connection on the wire bullet connectors. Grrrrrrr!

Re-tape and tie twine. Too Tight! Binding the mech. GRRRRRR!

More Surgery. Loosen the tape and twine.

Works good now.


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## BoysinBoo

Carved muscles for the legs out of recycled styro. This one is about four inches long.










Cut small lengths of coat hanger for some added support and taped it around the leg.










Using more tape, attacted the two muscles together and added a third section using one more wire coat hanger piece.










Gotta love wire coat hangers. More tape to attatch the individual legs to the leg frame (Made out of wire hangers)


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## BoysinBoo

Wonder what the body looks like on the frame?










It looks like you're about to dissect a frog.

Added two more middle legs then taped the frame (undercarriage) to the bottom.


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## BoysinBoo

WARNING: Lack of Pics! Sorry.

Papa Boo got a little excited and built the whole damn head and attached it without pics, so I'll attempt to explain.

He carved and shaped the head using a block of styro. It's roughly triangular shaped.

Using a spade bit, he drilled a 1" hole horizontally through the head, then added a .5" hole vertically through the top of the head. The hole on top intersects the cross-ways hole and is where you can drop in an led flasher or any other tiny battery op light. (His came from a dollar store honking toy)

The eyes are the lenses from some dollar store cheapo glasses with green glass beads hot glued to the inside. Hot glued the "eyes" into the styro shaped head.

Bent a couple small pieces of wire and wrapped them for the palps and mouth feelers. Shoved them into the stryo head.

Wanted the head to move indpendant of the antenna, so needed to come up with a way of letting the head move freely.

Cut a piece of cardboard shaped like the back of the head. Sandwiched the wire "antenna" upright coat hangers between the head piece and the cardboard. Duct taped it on. And wrapped the whole head in even more duct tape.

The next post will show the the head at this stage, but here are a few pics that were used for insipration while he worked.


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## BoysinBoo

Here's the front view of the face.










Without a good shell it looks like a big olive green cricket.










So he cut plates out of cardboard, lined them with coat hanger to keep the curved shape and taped it all together. The top plate is only tacked with one piece of tape to allow it to swing when attached to the head.


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## BoysinBoo

Didn't attach the shell yet to make painting/texturing easier.
But needed to see how the shell looked in place.

Here's the progress so far:










The legs didn't quite look right, so he bent some finish nails into curved shapes and taped them onto the legs. Much Better.


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## BoysinBoo

1) Taped over the eyes to keep them clear for painting.
2) Sprayed the entire bug and shell flat black as a base coat.
3) Sprayed glue over the whole body and back of the shell.
4) Dabbed cotton balls on the sticky glue. After it pulled on the cotton, he smoothed it down.










Paint entire body and back of shell with red (rust color) primer. Then removed masking on eyes.










A few more accects with the flat black spray.










Not sure what his deal is with putting Pyroach on the hood of his vehicles, but it does give a nice idea of the size.


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## BoysinBoo

The proud Papa.










The wire coat hanger antenna just weren't cutting it. He added brown pipe cleaners and sprayed them with some black paint.


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## BoysinBoo

Glass nugget eyes were nice, but the addition of a led flasher stepped it up a notch. He pulled this little board out of a toy he bought at Dollar Tree.










By hot gluing a piece of twine to a baby cockroach and taping it to the back of the board, it comes out of the hole much easier. He also glued a piece of styro under the roach to plug the hole and keep the light coming out only through the eyes.


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## BoysinBoo

That's about it.

The rest of the pics are for closeup views of the finished bug. In the haunt she will be eating a small arm, hand, or other body part and be surrounded by many, many of her offspring. The floor of the path next to her will be covered with walnut and peanut shells, so it will sound like you are walking on and crushing many more little friends. The effect is even unsettling for me and I suggested it. I'll put the MacGuyver Entry video at the end of all the finished product pics.


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## BoysinBoo




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## BoysinBoo

FIN


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## randy2084

WOW! Fantastic prop!

Thanks for posting this excellent how-to. I love the idea of the
walnut and peanut shells on the floor -- great atmosphere idea.


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## pyro

very nice how too---


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## Terrormaster

Awesome, nice how-to - wish I had time this year to tackle doing one myself. Love the head wiper crank design, never thought of doing it that way. 

And for some reason now I want to call PapaBoo Papa Roach


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## sharpobject

great detail. thanks for the heebie jeebies.


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## BRAinDead

That's delightfully nasty. And I mean that from the bottom of my churning stomach.


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## ubzest

ya ditto what they all said! creepy. I appreaciate all the work that you put into it.


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## Lilly

I really really like this guy...
thanks for the tutorial


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## Sickie Ickie

totally awesome! I wish ya had a vid in good light showing like 30 sec of his movement so I could study it more...


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## Toktorill

That was sooo beautiful.  Inspiring!


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## BoysinBoo

Sickie Ickie said:


> totally awesome! I wish ya had a vid in good light showing like 30 sec of his movement so I could study it more...


I think he might have some longer natural light clips. I'll try to find them tommorrow, and post them in the photobucket account.

edit: Sorry SI. Been distracted lately. I'll get it today.

edit to the edit: Pyroach :: PyroachRawVideoFootage.flv video by BoysinBoo - [email protected]@[email protected]@http://vid248.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid248.photobucket.com/albums/gg162/BoysinBoo/Pyroach/[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@[email protected]@gg162/BoysinBoo/Pyroach/PyroachRawVideoFootage


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## BoysinBoo

Hey! Who posted Pyroach up on the Hauntproject? Not complaining, just a little shocked. I went there looking for something else, and it took me a second to realize that it was right there on the home page. LOL.
http://www.hauntproject.com/projdetail.asp?category=Animatronic Props


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## Duncan

Make a video!


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## compexp

very nice and creative!


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## Plastic Ninja

Nice prop. Looks awesome and you'd never guess what it used to be.

I like the concept the crunching bugs underfoot, but I wouldn't use nut shells. Some kid could be anaphylactic and it could kill them. Just say'n.


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## pyro

its named after me ----


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## dynoflyer

That's awesome, love the "La Cucaracha" theme at the end of the vid LOL


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## Eeeekim

The movement is great, very realistic.
Love it.


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## Daphne

Plastic Ninja said:


> Nice prop. Looks awesome and you'd never guess what it used to be.
> 
> I like the concept the crunching bugs underfoot, but I wouldn't use nut shells. Some kid could be anaphylactic and it could kill them. Just say'n.


I have to second this. Crunching underfoot would creep me out but finding out we were walking on nut shells would scare the daylights out of me, in a bad way. My youngest has a life threatening nut allergy. You would not believe how many kids have them unfortunately.

That is an amazing prop!! I really, really don't like roaches and it completely creeps me out but man what an incredible job!!!


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## Lord Homicide

unbelievable...


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## ladysherry

OMG!!! I need one of these.
Thanks for the tut.


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## provprops

Nice job. It would be cool to get the legs motorized and setup as R/C.


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## Lord Homicide

Nano bugs, revamped to look like cockroaches, scurrying underneath pyroach would be the cherry on top.


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