Our church generally does a Fall Festival....really elaborate thing that we start planning in the summer. Food stalls, carnival games, hay rides, whole nine yards.
Needless to say, Covid-19 changed things for us. For the longest time, we thought we just weren't doing anything because of the number of cancelled events (local government has gone so far as to preemptively cancel Christmas parades, and there's talk of Mardi Gras being scaled back like crazy) the folks in charge decided in September that we would do a small-time Trunk Or Treat instead. Essentially decorate your car or truck as stations in the parking lot and let the kids go from place to place (which had to be turned into a Drive-Thru because again Covid).
So with only three weeks notice instead of three months, and only a few days of actual prep time around my work schedule, I built this.
The skeleton was a general plastic "Pose-N-Stay" skeleton found on Amazon as was the Wheel. His accoutrements (clothing, jewelry, and hat) were all from a local party store, and the Jolly Roger flag came from Bass Pro Shops. I had an MP3 player and speaker hidden just below the prow, playing a music loop from both the ride and the movie scores.
Almost everything else was Home Depot. The mast was a 4" PVC pipe painted brown, while the spreaders were 1.5" PVC also painted.
The sail was a 12x12 canvas dropcloth that was stained up by a combination of black spray paint....and a bottle of cherry vanilla Coca-Cola.
I actually balled the thing up, put it in a plastic mop bucket and soaked it in the drink to stain it. Let it sit overnight, then came home and spread it out on the concrete to let the sun bake it all day. Then I ran it through a cold rinse cycle and into the dryer with a Gain sheet so that it would be fluffy again.
You'll probably notice that his hands aren't on the wheel in the final setup.... that's because while I was transporting him in the back of the truck, he toppled. His back snapped in half, so I had to put him back together using a broomstick and duct tape. The good news: he was standing up again. The bad news: he had to stand straight up and couldn't touch the wheel anymore.
Needless to say, Covid-19 changed things for us. For the longest time, we thought we just weren't doing anything because of the number of cancelled events (local government has gone so far as to preemptively cancel Christmas parades, and there's talk of Mardi Gras being scaled back like crazy) the folks in charge decided in September that we would do a small-time Trunk Or Treat instead. Essentially decorate your car or truck as stations in the parking lot and let the kids go from place to place (which had to be turned into a Drive-Thru because again Covid).
So with only three weeks notice instead of three months, and only a few days of actual prep time around my work schedule, I built this.
The skeleton was a general plastic "Pose-N-Stay" skeleton found on Amazon as was the Wheel. His accoutrements (clothing, jewelry, and hat) were all from a local party store, and the Jolly Roger flag came from Bass Pro Shops. I had an MP3 player and speaker hidden just below the prow, playing a music loop from both the ride and the movie scores.
Almost everything else was Home Depot. The mast was a 4" PVC pipe painted brown, while the spreaders were 1.5" PVC also painted.
The sail was a 12x12 canvas dropcloth that was stained up by a combination of black spray paint....and a bottle of cherry vanilla Coca-Cola.
I actually balled the thing up, put it in a plastic mop bucket and soaked it in the drink to stain it. Let it sit overnight, then came home and spread it out on the concrete to let the sun bake it all day. Then I ran it through a cold rinse cycle and into the dryer with a Gain sheet so that it would be fluffy again.
You'll probably notice that his hands aren't on the wheel in the final setup.... that's because while I was transporting him in the back of the truck, he toppled. His back snapped in half, so I had to put him back together using a broomstick and duct tape. The good news: he was standing up again. The bad news: he had to stand straight up and couldn't touch the wheel anymore.
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