I really wish that I had planned on posting these pictures when I was making them. I am definitely missing several key pictures of the process. Luckily, for this one, I just used Becca Beach’s YouTube tutorial. She has done an amazing job of showing you how to make your own dementor.
Here’s my finished dementor. I have to say, I’m very proud of this one. And it makes me giggle every time a little trick-or-treater sees it and pauses before changing direction so they don’t have to walk directly under it. I have a white solar light that I shine on it at night, which makes it look extra creepy.
Here’s a closeup of the hands. I just used 5 wires to make the fingers with one of the wires being extra long so that I could insert it into the arm. The hardest part was making the 2nd hand match the first hand. Of course, they didn’t have to look identical but I really wanted them to look like they came from the same body.
Here I have attached the hands onto the arms. Sorry I don’t have pics of the shoulder/arm build so you’ll have to watch Becca’s video for that.
At this point, I have covered everything in black masking tape so that I wouldn’t have that shiny duct tape look. I hand-painted the styrofoam skull with black because mine was a glitter skull. DO NOT USE SPRAYPAINT. Did you know spraypaint will eat styrofoam? Just don’t use it unless you want your dementor to look a bit dissolved.
The final step was to dress it. This is definitely an outside job. I first pinned the black material over the shoulders. There’s no depth to the body but when it billows in the wind, it looks like there’s something there and really, you want the body to look like is flowing, like a ghost. After you have the black fabric the way you want it, mix up a bowl of liquid starch with a bunch of black acrylic paint. Soak a few sheets of cheesecloth in it and then drape them over your dementor. You’ll want to play around with it a bit until you get it just how you want it. I liked having it connected to the thumbs so that it extended up the arms. You can see here that I’ve tied the hands outstretched so that the cheesecloth dries correctly. I just used hemp rope at this point but when I display it, I use fishing line so that you cant see it.
I hope you enjoy these pictures and make sure you head over to Becca Beach’s video to see all of the steps.
Happy Halloween
Family Reads 