Executioner Monster

Once my I decided to make the Guillotine, I knew I was going to have to make an Executioner Monster to go along. I mean, how can I cut heads off with the Guillotine without one? The mask for the Monster I found on ebay, once again (it really is a valuable tool to pick up inexpensive Halloween props and materials, especially in the "off-season"). The costume doesn't really match up too well with my general notion of how an Executioner should look, but I was in a pinch and Halloween was closing in fast. Ideally, he'd have an naked torso and just a pair of pants on, but I don't have an appropriate way of making a naked torso. The Executioner costumes I found weren't so great either, and weren't big enough to fit a 6+ foot dummy. So I threw a gray long sleeve shirt on him and a pair of blue windpants. Add a pair of monster hands and a set of my old boots for the feet and he was all set. Effective enough.

I placed an axe in the Executioner's left hand, and a severed head in his right hand. The head managed to stay still with just the hair twisted in the hand, but I had to screw the axe handle to the PVC pipe inside the left hand to get it to stay put. The axe and head are both fakes, of course.

The Executioner went on the front porch next to the Guillotine, so I had no where to stake him into to get him to stand upright. With all the weight in the hands in front, the Monster was a bit front heavy and tended to tip over that way. To get him to stand upright, I placed a bale of straw behind the dummy and tied him around the waist with fishing line to the bale of straw. I hid the fishing line under his shirt, and used a couple of 10 lb flat weights as a 'shim' under the boots in front to counter the front tip. This worked well enough to keep the Executioner standing. To finish the look, I placed a couple of pumpkins in front of the Monster by his feet.

The frame for the Monster was a modified version of the large frames I built for the Mummy and Vampire. I shrank the frame up a couple inches in the arms and shoulders, and the legs to make the dummy about 6 feet tall. I did include the rear fork stabilizers even though I didn't put the dummy in the yard. That way I can always move him next year and not have to tear the whole frame apart.