BONE CAGE

Heres my latest project a bone cage for my witches display. I`m going to make some type of creature to put into it. It`s 19" high and 12" across. I used wire, plastic tubing, latex , cotton & Viva towels to make it.

Above are some close ups. The string was added later for looks  and isn`t doing anything. I still have to added some darkness to the bones.

I cut pieces of plastic tubing about 12" long ( they don`t have to be exact) Then I cut pieces of wire about 20" long. I placed the wire in the tube leaving extra wire at both ends. I then bend the wire at the ends to make a heart shape loops at each end. Any wire not used for the bend was wrapped around the tubing.   Next I used cotton to cover the heart shape wire at the ends of the tubing to give it some mass. Once I had all the cotton on I covered the cotton with latex using a brush. Above is some pictures of the latex drying. Notice that I used a piece of plastic as a surport in the center of the bones. This made adding latex and drying easyier and kept the tips of the bones from touching. Once the tips dryed I used paper towers and latex to cover the rest of the tubing. It was easy to do the centers of the bones because the tips or ends of the bones kept the centers raised.

Heres some drawing of the wire frame I attached the bones too. I used 18 gauge wire to make the frame but if you want it strong I would use a lower gauge wire. The lower the wire size the thicker the wire. ( I was lazy and use what was in arms reach) I also doubled up on the wire which works too.

Above is the top of the cage drawings.I just ran some wire across the top. Also I made a loop in the center for hanging.  Once I made the wire frame I used wire to connect the bones to the frame. after I connected all the bones I added a couple of coats of latex. And when that dried I used some string to wrap around were the bones touched the frame and each other.

I added the creature to the cage. I have to dress him a little. just some rags and maybe a little paint to his face.

This guys pretty much done. Guess I was wrong

Looks like somebody got a get out of jail card. I found this  monkey at my local KB store. His name is Joe Blow The farting Monkey & he made by Gemmy(30804). I pulled him out of a 2 dollar bin. Once I added batterys he came to life kicking his legs & singing. He also has a pull my finger switch that activate  him.

Two mintues later I skinned him showing off alot of cool things to play with. The first thing I noticed was how easy his feet came off. He also has a photo cell in his foot. It looks like he has 3 motors and one speaker thats pretty loud. The motors operate the feet , neck & the mouth. If I had some time I would operate all the motorsthru some type of controller ( Basic Stamp) but I`m going to just creep him out a little and cage him.

I remove the old legs and added some new longer legs with nice claws. I also added some long arms to hold the bars.

A side view & on the right is the pull my finger switch which turn out to be two contact with a piece of string. I`m going to use the switch to start him but I may put a switch on the speaker. He sings & talks about farting so it won`t fit into my witch display but the leg movement is great for rocking the cage. I will try and get some nice sound effects for the mouth movement.

The neck also has pretty cool  movement. Maybe next year I can really hook this creature up.

I added a head , arms & a little skin. The eyes light up

The everything still moves nice  and the eyes light up pretty cool. The neck still moves with a latex skin over it. The two creatures hanging out. I should have made two beer cans. Theres some Video of this creature doing his thing below. more to come.

Video one

Video two

Video three

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