Winged Reaper 

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	To the left and right is a talking skull I purchased for about 15 bucks. I wanted a cemetery greeter and I saw in a catalog a winged reaper that they wanted way to much for so I decided to build one of my own starting with this skull.
Although I don't have a pic of it , I started by taking a piece of pvc and wiring it to the back of the skull. I then took the head off a Blucky skeleton and cut the tip off that held that skull. I inserted the end of the pvc in the top and screwed it to the skeleton. Now I hung it outside to paint. I stuck a Q-tip in to the sensor hole and covered up the eye socket with a little newspaper and tape. Next I took 2 cans of almond colored spray paint and gave him several coats.
	Next I took some medium brown stain, I believe it was american colonial. I brushed it on then dabbed it off. Leaving it a bit darker in crevices . I continued this until I liked what I saw. At this time I also removed the Q-tip and tape.
My original idea was just to have him in a coffin near the entrance to my cemetery but that changed when I saw the catalog. Next, I still wanted the blinking eyes but I didn't want the hollow eye sockets, so first I put in two eyeblanks (deodorant balls). It didn't quite do it so, leaving the eyeblanks in I grabbed my glue gun and filled in the sockets the rest of the way. I'm glad I liked it when I was done, I would have hated to dig out all that glue!
	The wings I had some bucky bones laying around and set them in a curve shapeon my work bench. Then I took some long thin screws, cut the heads off, drilled a hole in each end of the bones and screwed the bones together. For good measure I took some hotglue and put it at all the joints. I took a couple of pieces of 2x4 and made a base. In the center I drill a hole to fit a metal pipe in to. I then drilled two holes near the top of the pipe and two holes in another piece of 2x4. I then attached them together with acouple of bolts. Next I screwed the bones on , using several screws.
Now I took some cheese cloth and draped it over the bones. This is one length of cheesecloth, 7 yards. I only wrapped the edge of cloth once, when I was done I wanted the bones to show through. To secure the cloth I used latex, with some stain mixed in it.I just brushed this on in a good enough coat to glue the cloth to the bones.I grabbed the scissors and cut holes in cloth and pulled it to give it the death look, also trimmed the tails a little bit to long for me. Quick tip ; When adding stain to latex be careful how much,wet latex doesn't give you the true color. It will be much darker then it looks after it dries. I attached my finished skeleton to the frame with two zip ties. Just above and below the 2x4 that holds the wings. After looking at it I realized that the legs are not really needed. when i'm done you won't see them.
	Well here he is all dressed up. The robe is a painters tarp. I took the tarp folded it in half , drew the out line of a robe, pinned it, cut it out, grabbed some heat bond and secured the edges, let it cool, turned it inside out to hide the seams. Putting it on him was a bit of a challange. I had to cut open some of the back to fit it over the shoulders and around the wings but then resecured it with grommets and ran string through them.
	I had a mask with white hair, removed it and glued it to the reaper. The necklace is pipe cleaners and a skull with some teeth from another necklace I had. The belt is part of an old costume, with a couple of plastic skeletons wired to it.
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