Creatrope

This was inspired by a recent post on Make’s blog. It was just photos, so I thought I’d note down the actual technique and some changes I made. We worked together on it as a family with my child doing a bulk of the paper-mache and painting while I did the ‘electrical’ and ’structural’ work.

Forming The Skull

A godzilla/tyrannosaurus skull is formed from box cardboard. Two upper jaws, two lower jaws, and a 2″ strip across the back and top, and a strip down the center top skull to the nose, and one running across the upper jaw and the snout. This is two coarse a lattice to lay paper-mache on (it will be too blocky), so a lattice of 1″ masking tape forms a tighter grid.

The components are glued together with hot-glue (best) or white glue (and then staple the pieces so you can work immediately). I found staples were not enough to keep the skull stable.

Covering

I used paper-mache recipe of 5 cups boiling water to 1 cup flour, with some salt. Mix well, let everything cool, and strain to prevent lumps. Use from a covered container as you’ll make several passes so you want to refrigerate it for later use.

Cover the outside with newsprint strips, let dry, repeat on the inside to cover the fragile lattice. It’s best to cover anything you want to paint eventually.

At this point I did some dino plastic surgery, cutting down and shaping the jaw. I also found that that it was pretty heavy and started to look misshapen. After some experimentation, I found that two diagonally placed pieces of tape across the opening kept it perfectly symmetrical while drying.

I added brow ridges to the original design by twisting some paper, taping place over the eye areas, then paper-mache’ing over those.

I let everything dry, then covered with a thin coat of mod podge to give it some further protection.

Head Attachment

I was a bit puzzled on how to keep it on my child’s head, then decided to use some recycled foam, cut into strips around the sides, top and back. I need a double thickness, and even that didn’t stay too steady (it may for you, so the next step is optional), so I built a custom “helmet” out of hot glue cardboard using the exact head measurements and then hot-glued that inside.

Eyes

The eyes are formed from milky-white recycled halloween packaging plastic forms. Something shiny, reflective, thin enough to cut, translucent, and roundish. Since it was crushable, I put crumpled saran wrap inside to give it strength. I created two yellow LED eyes using a 9v circuit. I got them coarsely into place working it under the foam and underneath the saran wrap in the eyes. The 9v battery simply tucks under the foam as well and is not glued so it can be turned on and off or replaced.

Accessories

The jump-suit is a green overall.

A tail is formed form a large piece of triangular felt, with a base of about a 10″ and a length of 2′ or so, hot-gluing or sewing along one long edge after folding in half. Turning it inside out so you have an attractive seam is optional. The tail was safety-pinned onto the jumpsuit for ease of removal.

The claw gloves are formed by roughly tracing the child’s hand, pushing the fingers together, cutting two pieces, and then hot-gluing or sewing the two pieces. Note that it’s easy to make them too small, so be generous in your sizing.

The plates are cut from cardboard, painted, then hot-glued onto a thin strip of cardboard. The cardboard strip has two safety pins hot-glued into it so the plates can be removed easily (you can’t sit in a car with them). They are painted green base coat with white tips, like Godzilla.

This is the most fragile part of the suit.

Voila!

It was a huge hit and won “Most Awesomest Costume Ever” at the party, which of course made my child very happy!