The Reaper

For 2002 the newest and by far the biggest prop I constructed was our Grim Reaper. I have always been in awe of Distortions Sleeping Giant so the thought of constructing anything that came close to its sheer size has always been appealing.

I wanted to create a prop that towered above the rest, but maintained the look of our cemetery. What better addition to a cemetery then a grim reaper. My first step was to find the perfect mask for the application. After meeting Kevin Alvey from Gore Galore, he showed me a “Ramses the Great” mask/prop by Lubatti Designs which fit the profile perfectly. The ramses is actually a thick cast latex prop which was even better then a latex mask. It has no eye or mouth holes, so this was a key factor for building an anamatronic head. Kevin also custom ordered the mask with the latex to be half the thickness for ease of animation. This caused a bit of problems with filling the prop, but was necessary for the final outcome. If I did it again, id order 2. Once the Ramses arrived, that was the beginning of the huge project of reverse engineering out the face, creating cavities for the eyes, eyelids and mouth. That was by far the most complicated part of the project which spanned over about 4 months, but was a great learning experience. The head is a bit small compared to the body, so the reaper may have a new head for ’03, but we’ll wait and see how that one goes.

Once the head was done, it was time to move into the body design and construction. Originally the reaper was going to be life size (around 6’ tall) and stand up and walk from our main FCG mausoleum to the gate and begin talking. Well after construction began and measurements were taken I realized that we only had 4’ of clearance between his full arm extension to the inside wall of our gate, so the walking idea was scrapped and sheer size prevailed. The reaper was soon designed and built to be 5.5’ tall in his sitting position and with the help of a 14” stroke 3” bore cylinder, raised up 3’ to a towering 8.5” tall standing position. He was also designed with multiple movements which I had never attempted. His original design incorporated 16 cylinders and allowed for just about any realistic lifelike movement we could imagine. In the end he ended up with 13, having the legs and waist cylinders removed. (which was a good thing since we had no idea how we were gonna control this guy). His original plans also used a 1 channel light organ (or lightning simulator as its more known) to sync his voice to the pneumatic mouth jestures, but thanks to my neighbor and his MIDI equipment, we were able to hard code each mouth movement and achieve a flawless performance. Actually without Dave’s help and support, I would have quit working on the reaper in mid October and he wouldn’t have made an appearance till 03.

After months of planning and trial and error building, I ended up with a huge robotic figure that weighs over 150lbs (without counter weights) and has full arm, elbow, shoulder, neck, waist, head, eye, mouth, and other body movements. He’s awesome, and with the voice over that Mark Harvey from Pumpkinland recorded and edited, brings the whole project to life.

For the final touches, the most awesome lady I have even been introduced too sewed a 9.5’ burlap cloak to clothe this huge monster. Noreen, I can’t thank you enough for your help. It’s a pain in the butt to just dress this guy, so it must have been a nightmare to design and sew the whole thing together. Thanks again.

Due to its complex nature and cost, I have decided to not publish construction instruction on the website or in any future book, but hopefully the pictures will give you a good idea and a starting point for your own reaper or robotic concoction. Good Luck