PVC Armature

PVC plastic pipe, PVC and wood or all wood armature ideas. Because there are a lot of different things and sizes you can use as a head it would be hard to give a size you need. Most masks are a one size fits all but you still can put a full size on on a 3 ft. to 6 ft. body. The same with styrofoam head. Lots of people use these to make some really nice looking prop heads. They can be gotten cheap at most beauty supply or schools. Skulls come in a variety of sizes. Bucky skulls are life size and can be gotten form,

http://anatomical.com/Default.asp?

Other skulls you might already have or get form stores around Halloween can come in different sizes all together. Any skull you have can be turned into multiple heads by following our how-to's from the Skulls page on this site.

Sizing Reference for Your Armature.

Use your body ( or the body of an adult if your not fully grown ) as a reference. Take these measurements.

Total inches around the head. widest part. Like getting a hat size.

Neck to shoulders

Shoulder to shoulder

Shoulder to wrist

Neck to waist.

Hip to hip.

Hip to floor.

On the body take flat measurements. Try not to go around the contours.

These numbers will be your starting point to getting the right size for the skull our head your using.

Getting Measurements for the Armature

Using your head measurement round it up or down to the nearest number. Will work with 19 inches. The head or skull you want to use is 14 inches round. You need to find out what percent difference the two sizes are. In this case it's 25 % ( that's close enough. We're not building a rocket here.) Now take all your measurements and subtract 25%. You now have a armature to fit the head your using. Remember, you can put a big head on a small body and it will look troll like. But if you put a small head on a big body it will look funny.

This not to scale Gif is an example of a simple PVC pipe armature. It's using,

1 T adapter from the hips to the back.

1 X adapter from the back to the shoulders and neck.

2 elbow adapters from the hips to the legs

The rest is straight pipe. Using 3/4 inch will give you the best stability.

If your doing our torso and ribs all you would need to have together is the upper part. Make your hips and legs around the rest of the armature. If you make your corpse in two pieces it might be easier to store.

This next armature is the one I used for all our stand up corpses. I knew I was going to put pants on each one. Buy running this down one pant leg and leaving the other hang loose I got the full effect of a standing corpse without having to make the legs.

This third armature is to address the problem of hanging a paper mache corpse. Buy having internal support for the shoulders, neck and head PLUS a tube to run the rope through you'll have no trouble with the head popping off. This is also a good idea if your intend to make a pinata out of a corpse body. (use as few coats of mache as possible on the body and chest to make it easier to break open) The corpse weight will be distributed along the shoulders and held up by the frame.

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