Skulls & Skeletons

One of the classic motifs of Halloween is the skeleton or skull - representing the final stage of decomposition before passing to dust. They can be a low-gore scare for smaller kids and seem to lighten the mood a bit since they are always smiling. Dad jokes aside, you can still take a plain skeleton and add more to it to bring it back a step or two in the stages of decomposition in a process known as 'corpsing'. You can also modify a skull and add some servos and a controller to turn it into a talking animatronic known as the three axis skull. Some skeletons are posable, and others are not, but may be coaxed into holding a position. Many of the posable skeletons can be coaxed into standing on their own for menacing, creepy, or humorous displays.

There are many types of skeletons that are known to haunters by various names such as the inexpensive, blow molded plastic 'blucky' skeleton at the low end, and go up to the anatomically correct teaching skeletons used to train medical students. You can even 3D print skulls and skeletons.

Skeleton Types

Anatomically Correct, Life Size Skeletons

The original sources of the best quality skeletons - Anatomical Chart Company and Bucky's Boneyard - are no longer in business. But there are other sources available for life size, realistic skeletons, such as:

Anatomy Warehouse

3B Scientific

Amazon, of course, has everything

Posable Skeletons

Lately, these have been a staple at big box retail outlets and hardware stores for Halloween. They are a lot less expensive than the anatomically correct skeletons, far lighter, and much easier to pose because they are made with joints that will (usually) stay in the position you set them in at the jaw, neck, shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip, knee, and ankle; giving you great flexibility in posing your skeleton in just the right position. Most come with a black cord loop at the top of the skull for hanging, which can be easily cut off if you like. They generally also have light up, red, LED eyes operated by battery, located in the back of the skull. They can also come in different colors such as bone white, black, chrome, or glow in the dark green. There are a few varieties as well - such as the two-headed version, a pirate version, a cyclops, werewolf, and a mermaid.

Smaller Skeletons

Smaller three foot posable skeletons are also popular in retail and online stores. They have many of the same qualities and features as the larger posable skeletons, but in a smaller 'kid sized' form factor. You may even find some that will move the jaw and say a variety of phrases like "Hey - What are you lookin' at?" and "You call that a costume?". Red LED eyes are also common in the smaller skeletons.

Larger Skeletons

One of the most popular skeletons in the haunt community recently was the Home Depot 12 foot skeleton. This massive creation towered over many yards in 2020 and 2021, and featured innovative "LifeEyes" - small OLED displays in the eye sockets that played a video of eyes looking around and blinking. If you loved the eyes, but could not get a giant skeleton before they all sold out, you can visit Adafruit and check out their HallowWing series of maker boards to duplicate the effect. Home Depot also offers Giant Skeleton costumes so you can dress your big guy as a Witch, Scarecrow, or even Santa.

Blow Molded Skeletons

These are the lowest of quality and also least detailed and least expensive. They are very low in detail - with hands and feet that look similar to snow mittens and a skull that only has a hint of eye recesses. They are made out of plastic that is heated and blown into a mold, much like a milk jug container is made - and just about as thin. These are still good options if your purpose is to have the structure of a skeleton, but nearly completely obscured from view. These may be a good option if you are going to be wrapping the skeleton like a mummy or completely covered in a cocoon of spider webbing as a victim to a giant spider. These are also the lightest option available, so if weight is a main concern, these will suit the bill in many cases, but you may want to treat them with a bit of paint or use a corpsing technique to enhance the low quality paint job that generally accompanies these skeletons.

Animal and Insect Skeletons

Besides human skeletons, you can find a wide range of animal and insect and other skeletons and skulls as well. These will usually appear at retail stores in early October and can range from dollar store rat and bird skeletons to spider, snake, alien skulls, dogs, cats, fish, and howling wolfs. On the larger side, there are now even mermaid skeletons, ponies, dinosaurs, and horses.

Corpsing

The act of adding additional material and a colorant to a skeleton for the purpose of creating the effect of a body near the end of the decomposition process is known as 'corpsing'. The most common technique involves the use of plastic sheeting being tightly wrapped around the skeleton parts, colored with dark earth tones, and then hit with a heat gun to tighten and distort the plastic, giving an effect of layers of dried flesh clinging to the corpse.

Posing Skeletons

If you have ever worked with skeletons in the past, you will know that the position you want them to be in doesn't always agree with the position THEY want to be in. Heads like to spin and face the wrong direction, limbs tend to dangle limply or lay askew. And getting one to stand up on its own is not an easy task - especially with a heavy, cast resin Bucky type of skeleton. Fortunately, there are a few techniques that can make life a little easier. The easiest way to get a skeleton to strike a pose, apart from playing Madonna's 'Vogue', is to use a skeleton designed for this purpose. Posable skeletons are readily available in early October in big box hardware stores and some retail stores. They are fairly accurate and make life a lot easier since they can support their own weight through the use of specially designed joints. If you have a non-posable skeleton, you can often achieve similar, but less stable results by using electrical tape to wrap in and around the joints to hold them in place. White electrical tape helps the joint supports blend in, and a bit of corpsing or other decoration placed at the joints will help disguise the workings.

If you would like to have a free-standing skeleton with no visible means of support, you can try taking a length of rebar and hammering it into the ground and securing a leg to the rebar. A little white paint and white zip ties will help disguise the support. Another trick is to use some 1.5" PVC pipe and fittings to create an inverted T where the length of the T will be zip tied to the spine of the skeleton as needed and the cross piece should be wide enough to hold the skeleton in place and resist tipping sideways. Paint the PVC pipe black and it will help it hide in the darkness, leaving no visible signs of support.