[scarrycher]

I'm trying to make a huge octopus, cheap...I have made many suction cups out of clay and thinking of making the arms out of pool noodles and garbage bags but not sure how to pull it off...help

 

[Lord Homicide]

Rebar tie wire is a great material to make a wire frame or structure with. get it at home cheapo

 

[The Watcher]

Don't know how long you want this to last. But acorn caps would also make the suctions. Maybe a giant balloon or beach ball to give your trash bag some shape.

 

[RoxyBlue]

How you approach this will depend a bit on how closely the octopus will be viewed. If there is a little distance between viewer and prop, and if it's not brightly lit, you'll be fine using the black garbage bag idea. Watcher's suggestion of a big beach ball or humongo balloon for the body is a good one. Pool noodles for the arms are fine - you'll need to taper the ends since that's what real octopus arms do, wrap tightly with black plastic bags, and secure with black duct tape. Suckers can be attached with hot glue.

You might check out some of the threads about giant spiders folks have made and posted here for ideas. The techniques can certainly be adapted to the making of an octopus on the cheap.

Here's one that Devil made:

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=26529&highlight=giant+spider

And one that Niblique made:

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=23903&highlight=giant+spider

 

[scarrycher]

Help!

I am trying to make a huge octopus, I was going to use pool noodles and ta method from Stiltbeast using garbage bags and a heatgun. The problum I'm having is the noodle melts befor the garbage bag! I am new to this fourm and to the home haunt so if I put this in the wrong place, please forgive

 

[CoolDJTV]

Stiltbeast using garbage bags that would work good

 

[scarrycher]

I still intend to use garbage bags but I want the arms to have gurth and be bendable, I don't want to use paper mache because it will not be plyable, The melting of the garbage bags gives it texture and that is what I want. Just cant figure what to put inside that wont melt?

 

[scarrycher]

thanks for you help, I have made suckers out of clay, I plan to mount it over head, above my pirate ship, It should be fairly dark and maybe i'm just trying to make it to lifelike and I don't need to

 

[RoxyBlue]

Try running a length of rebar tie wire inside the pool noodles to make them posable, as Lord Homicide suggested. It's dirt cheap, flexible, and holds its shape once bent. You might need to run a double length, but it's inexpensive enough to experiment with to see if it suits your needs.

 

[scarrycher]

thanks

 

[scarrycher]

octopus arm

I had a light bulb moment, I cut tapered lengths of garbage bag and used my seal-a-meal to melt the edges together to form a tube. It worked better than i could hope for, turned it right side out, painted brown on back side then tan on the suction cup side, glued on suction cups and it looks very real

 

[Daphne]

Well we are going to need pictures of course. We love pictures.

 

[scarrycher]

I'm new to this fourm and don't know how to post pictures...help?

 

[scarrycher]

pirate ship

friends of octopus, three of the pirates that will be in my sunkin ship room

 

[scarrycher]

octopus arm

one down seven to go

 

[RoxyBlue]

That tentacle looks really good, scarry.

 

[Headless]

I agree - looks great so far. Looking forward to seeing the finished prop!

 

[The Watcher]

That light bulb moment looks great!

 

[Daphne]

Now that is a good looking tentacle! Very nice!

 

[Howlinmadjack]

That's awesome!! Don't you just love that moment when you realize I know what I need to do to make this work...That is one of the reasons why we do this!