# My Modified Stalkabout Costume Progress - Mort the Meat Man - WIP 2011



## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

After an on and off month of collecting supplies and general procrastination I finally got started on my costume for this year. My idea was inspired by Kevin's Phenomenal Body Bag costume. 









Kevin's the same guy responsible for the equally impressive Jumbo the Clown and Jester costumes as well. He's got some oversized costume construction how to at his site www.baldbrain.com so if you've never been there I suggest you check it out!

Looking for further inspiration some YouTube searches (as well as these forums) lead me to Gore Galore's (www.gore-galore.com) line of stalkabouts. I was immediately drawn to the Zombie Lurker costume.. Incredibly impressive to say the least. I want to see one close up just so I can see how they achieve that incredible head movement.









This is when the gears started turning.. I wanted to expand on Kevin's Body Bag by modifying it a bit and combining it with Gore Galore's Zombie Lurker. Of course, the Gore Galore stuff is a bit out of my price range so I was gonna have to get a bit creative. So, enough with the intros... Off we go..

I started with one of Kevin's progress pics and sketched out my idea.









I modified his conduit brace and support a bit since I needed a bit more mobility to move the arms, head, etc. A few process pics of the support, my ladder stand-in, and the basic pvc frame.






























I wanted some head movement so I rigged up a very basic pvc pivot. I slid a 3/4" to 1/2" pvc T joint over a 1/2" pvc form that I then pvc glued into the frames spine. 























Added a spare styro head I had laying around to give him a bit of personality.. I think I'll name him Mort.









Mort's head had a natural sway when I would walk but I wanted a bit of control as well. Using some nylon twine and some eye hooks I rigged up a bargain basement control system. By drilling through the neck pvc I attached the twine and ran it through eye hooks fastened under his shoulders and attached some D rings to the end of them. Pull down on left and it swings left. On right, swings right. Easy enough and it suits my purposes.









The basic skelly was done so now to give Mort a bit more personality. I drew up a goofy looking skull and carved it out of 5 pieces of 2" thick pink foam glued together. Maybe a bit of overkill on the size of the skull but what the hell, it's only once a year.. Still need to do some detail work and still deciding what direction to go on the eyes. Was thinking big and buggy but found some cheap purple battery powered LED lights so might recess those in. Jury is still out at the moment. Some pics of the drawing to rough carve and Mort getting a suitable (but sightless) head.






























With the head roughed out, I went to work on the hands. 2" inch pink foam cut to monster size. I ran 12 gauge wires through the fingers and shaped them to look a bit more like finger bones and a little less like marshmallows. Taped them into their desired positions and they are ready for their paper mache top coat. I really like the look of the right hand. The left not as much but I had to form a fist to hold the axe / bone saw Mort will carry. The right is so much more dynamic. I then cut the pvc forearms to length, set them into the hands.























Right hand ready for paper mache









It looks like I reached my max image attachment quota for this post. I should have known, I do tend to ramble a bit. But anyway, more pics to follow as they become available. Mort needs his exposure. Or at least that's what he keeps telling me anyway.


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

the left hand pic and the some pics of Mort's current state.

Left hand ready for some clobberin' time..









Mort


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## OctoberDream (Aug 7, 2011)

That's really cool.


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

More progress..

Mort's head gets some redesigning. Eyebrows get a beefed up a bit, I decided to sink the eye sockets in contrast to the my early bug eye sketch. I'm pretty happy with the results. I gave him more pronounced cheekbones and a nosejob. Oh, yeah, I decided he needed to suffer some massive head trauma and cracked his skull to leave his brain exposed. As a plastic surgeon I would be top notch barring the last part..

































New an improved Mort. I think he looks a bit leaner and a lot less goofy. Also, put in his placeholder teeth until I can carve some real ones up. Oh, yeah, I wanted to light his eyes up so found some cheap LED flashlights and sunk them into the back of his head. As if the head trauma wasn't already bad enough I'm sinking flashlights into his brain. Poor Mort..

















And what good is Mort without a weapon? Found a pretty cool pic of a gruesome axe / bonesaw and blew it up to the size I wanted. I transfered that over to some foamcore sheets, shaped the blades, and taped them together to form a pretty close facsimile. I slopily coated it with some wood filler for texture and added a bunch of screws and wire. Finally, I wrapped the handle in rope to finish the look. All I need now is a paint job.

Mort is now armed..

































More to come as pics become available..


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

Just a quick update with a colored pencil sketch I drew up of Mort. Still having a real hard time describing what exactly I'm doing this year when people ask. Well, here is the concept sketch..









My head will be sticking out of Morts back with a noose around my neck. I'll be building an armless severed torso (with moving exposed spine) out of pink foam, great stuff, chicken bones and a wooden snake. Still building up the the shoulders out of foam and great stuff so I'll be able to start working on clothes. Got a few yards of black and brown fabric as well as some green/grey freaky fabric to piece together his wardrobe. He's still on the verge of coming together and once he does I'll be back with some updates.

More to come..


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

More status on the build.. If anyone out there has any tips or comments feel free to let me know. I'm just sort of winging it here.  

With Mort's head and hands ready for mache I decided to bulk up his shoulders. Using some styrofoam I had on hand from a mower purchase earlier this year (I knew it would come in handy someday!) I double layered and wrapped it in tape. Still having some empty spaces to fill I turned to Great Stuff. Personally, it's the first time I've used it (I know, Halloween blasphemy!) so wasn't quite sure what to expect. Filled the spaces okay but made a great hunchback. Left that to dry before some shaping cleanup and went to work on the axe.









The oh so intimidating oatmeal color has been replaced by a basecoat of black before getting a drybrush of silver on the blade and dark brown on the handle and misc rope details. Wanting to go for an older rustier look, I hit the blade with a rather heavy handed drybrush of orange. My first attempt at aging a blade so might ease up a bit on the orange on future props.. The picture makes it look much more orange and a lot less rusty to me. But of course, that's nothing a heavy dose of blood spatter can't fix. 

































Hopefully I can get the paper mache work on Mort's head and hands done this weekend before tackling his wardrobe. How hard can it be to throw together something made out of random pieces of burlap, linen, and freaky fabric? Let's see Tyra Banks do that.. 

More to come..


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## piraticalstyle (Sep 1, 2009)

Oh hells yeah! That's brilliant! I can't wait to see as Mort continues to take shape.


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## icyuod2 (Oct 27, 2009)

Frigg'n awesome!


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## matthewthemanparker (Sep 8, 2007)

Mort is awesome!


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

Thanks for the compliments! Coming from this group that's an incredible honor. Out doing a dry run for the Halloween festivities planned but will be back on the horse tomorrow. Hopefully he can hit paint and torso sculpt by next weekend.


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## Greikate (Sep 5, 2011)

This is fantastic! Can't wait to see more!


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

Sorry about the delay in posting updates but the last week or so have been pretty hectic. Finally got back on track but still haven't gotten as far as I would have liked. Hopefully this weekend he can hit paint (crossing fingers).. But anyway, here goes..

Mort gets some temporary clothes. Having never fashioned a coat for a 5 ft tall / 3 ft wide monster before I created some loose templates from some leftover weed/garden fabric. Once it looked okay I cut the actual costume fabric (black and brown linen), distressed it with a sanding block and a pair of scissors and Viola! Mort has a fairly respectable coat. Not bad for a staple gun seamtress..

















I tied a hangmans noose that will go around my neck and be fastened to Mort's left wrist. 









And made a "metal" plate of sorts out of foamcore, tacks, and a couple rings. Based it black, drybrushed some silver, and hit it with some brown and orange paint to give it a rusted look. This will be where the misc body parts attach with some rope and dangle over Mort's right shoulder.

















The hands got paper mache'd as well and let me tell you what a pain that was. It should have gone a bit better but getting in between the fingers and tight to the joints was a bit of a chore. Add to that some curious cats and a bowl of paper mache paste and you can imagine.. Did the right hand in one solid piece but given the finger bends of the left I did that a finger at a time and then attached them to the hand. The thumb remains unattached so I can get the axe in there once the hand gets painted. 

































Semi-Finished hands ready for basecoat and paint









Sadly, I wasn't able to paper mache Mort's head yet but with any luck will get that accomplished sometime this week. However, I put the pieces I have finished (I use that term loosely) togther and without further ado.. Here's Mort so far..









In the picture you can see what will be his / my distressed and bloodied legs as well as the equally distressed and muddied up boots. I also added a closeup of the "limb" plate as well as a store bought severed hand which still needs a bit of goring up. 

















Well, hopefully I'm right on schedule but it never stops the pre Halloween jitters. Every year I feel I start early enough only to always come down to the wire. I'll put a bit more work in this week and will hopefully have more to share by weeks end.. 

More to come...


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

Just a quick update pic of Mort with paper mache work completed. Added some freaky fabric to spruce it up a bit as well. 

View attachment 96273


Was another rough week with Katie getting sick so now it's down to crunch time. Just paint and the back piece assembly work to go and 5 days to go.. I've always been told I worked well under pressure so here's the real test... More to come when available..


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

Not sure why the pic didn't load so giving it another shot. Have completed some of the torso stuff but won't have pics till the weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to update with the completed costume by then! 

View attachment 96461


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## peagreen (Oct 26, 2011)

A. Freaking. MAZING! My stupid "cryptic rocker" knock-off pales in comparison to this masterpiece... Excellent work, friend!


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

Thanks Peagreen! I've been grinding away at him for what feels like forever now. I tried to upload a couple pics yesterday but it doesn't seem to have taken.

2 days to go and still needs a coat of paint and some detail work.. Wish me luck..


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

Updates and the final costume pics from Halloween coming soon! Since the last status post there's been a wedding, an open house, and an incident involving my dog shredding some of the yet to be seen backpiece. That will teach me to incorporate chicken bones into my costume.. Will have to rebuild that piece again before I can get full costume pics posted.

More to come..


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

Okay, I was able to upload a few more process pics so here goes. The pics are a bit more haphazard but that was due to the time crunch so my apologies on that..

As of my last update Mort was paper mache'd and ready for paint. Since I wanted to do all the painting at once I got to work on the back. As in the original sketch my idea was to have Mort haul around my severed torso on his back. That way there was a reason my head was exposed. 

Working with foam sculpted out some stumps for the severed arms (since my actual arms would be controlling Morts). Using my dremel roughed them up a bit and hot glued some chicken bones in place. 









I based that all in black, a couple of coats of red, purple for the stumps and a drybrush of white for the exposed bone.

















Once the stumps were acceptable I started on the rest of the severed torso. more pink foam, more dremel..

















I really liked the idea of having my spine be exposed and have some mobility. Found the perfect solution in a $1 wooden snake from Hobby Lobby. I carved up some foam, drilled some holes in them, and threaded the snake through them. I used the dremel to trim off the excess.

















Once I was happy with the look I put it all together. Attached the spin to the guts with quite a bit of hot glue, formed some ribs out of 10 gauge wire wrapped in masking tape, and then based in black. Layers of purple, red on the guts and drybrush of ivory and then a highlight of white for the spine and ribs.

















All this would be attached to my back to hang freely under a shirt I ripped and distressed. Sorry, no pics of that yet. Will try to finish the rest of the uploads soon.

More to come..


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## zero (Aug 27, 2004)

first off,, its 3 weeks after halloween why are you building this on this schedule , second off ,im diggin this build, keep those pics updated


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## DeadMeat (Aug 12, 2010)

Zero,

The costume was completed just before the Halloween weekend but it's been a busy couple weeks since then. Got married a week ago so as you can imagine it's been a crazy time. Just got around to posting the pictures but before I could take final pics of the costume (well, those that weren't drunken and blurry from the night out!) our dog decided to rip apart the the arms to get the chicken bones.. (the ones I posted above). She's okay but a couple hours of work erased in a shredded pink mess..

So, I finally get time to update the pics and now I need to rebuild some severed arms if I ever want to wear it again to get final pics. But, in the meantime, I really just want to get the completed costume pics on here for posterity as well as for anyone that was keeping tabs on the process. I'm sure that with the long weekend I'll fix up the damaged arms and get some final pics / video online soon.

Final costume pics to come!


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## matthewthemanparker (Sep 8, 2007)

Congrats on the marriage. I'm surprised you even had time to attempt something like this while preparing for a wedding.


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## Jonnyflash (Jan 2, 2012)

*Great job*

I have been gradually progressing in my costumes and was looking at the Frankenstein lurker but cannot believe the prices so I was contemplating building one but was not sure of the mechanics. If you have any links or resources for the mechanics ,that would be great. I can't wait to see your creation in action. Well done and thanks for sharing
John


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## Pennywise (Oct 21, 2004)

This is awesome. I wanted to make a stalk-a-round for years, but never got to it...maybe this year, thanks for the inspiration


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