Props of the past Mr. Lo Pan

I have blogged about Mr. Lo Pan a few times. But I have never posted about how I made him. I cannot draw so all of my pieces start in my head as concepts. I usually just start building, I don’t even make a sketch first.

He was made for a contest at Hauntforum.com

The contest was to use Monster Mud as the main component. Monster Mud is a mixture of latex paint and drywall mud. It was made famous by Terror Syndicate. The original recipe is here Monster Mud. Typically it is used on burlap. I find that burlap makes for very heavy props when used with MM and doesn’t allow for the true character of the fabric to show through so I like to use finer lightweight fabrics like muslin. I also like to dip my fabric in the MM and totally saturate it and then wring it out and squeegee all the excess MM off of it. Once I apply it to the piece I rarely add additional MM, unless it is between pieces of fabric as a glue.

I started by building a stack of crates from an old potting shelf and part of an old fence. I wanted then to look old and crooked.

Next I fashioned a body form from chicken wire and set it upon the crates. I measured my own body and subtracted a percentage from the arms and legs to make him seem dis-proportionate. I put a cast foam skull on a stick and put it in the body form. I bent it into the proper pose (or so I thought)

I then spent some time researching the proper position that flute players use when playing. I realized I was a bit off. My next task was to make an internal armature for the body form, I realize this may seem backwards but I wanted to make the body form and pose it properly first (I believe this makes for a more visually compelling body form). I marked the wire form and then unbent it. I attached a steel floor flange to the top crate and screwed an 18 inch piece of pipe into it. I then bent PVC with a heat gun and inserted it into the body form. I used wire and zip ties to attach the PVC to the steel pipe and body form.

Now to make the head. A foam skull armature, paperclay, black glue, cheese cloth, paint and some roll-on deodorant balls. I wanted him to look like he had wandered in the desert for 100 years.

Now to make hands. I had to look at how a flautist hold their hands, and then dip my hands in flex wax and hold them like that. I had no resin and it would have pushed me over the challenge price limit probably, so they are just foam.

Now back outside. I took some epoxy clay I think and put armature wire in the end of the PVC where the head and hands go as mounting points. I then covered his entire body form with news print. This does 2 things. It gives me something to look at instead of looking through his body and it adds a surface for the monster mud to lay on. At this point I had no idea if this would work or not. His hands looked way to big to me, and his wrists looked too small, what a design mess.

So I mixed up some monster mud and started applying wraps to his torso, and a small cape to his back and over his shoulders.

After that dried I cut his cape. His cape was 2 pieces of cloth. Otherwise I wouldnt be able to handle it once it was heavy with Monster mud, and it wouldnt lay correctly I didn’t think once applied. It was extremely heavy and hard to handle.

Painting of his clothing was next, it took me probably 20+ hours and many washes of acrylic paint.

Now to setup his photo shoot.

Any questions? Feel free to ask.