Easy Skull Corpsing

In the simple tutorial, I am going to show you how to convert a cheap plastic skull, into a cool, creepy halloween decoration. PS, I only made this skull for fun, I wasn't actually planning on creating an instructable until afterwards so please excuse the lack of photos showing progress, thank you.

What you will need:

• Cheap Plastic Skull
• Cotton Wool (you can use cotton balls, I just happened to have a roll of cotton handy)
• Pva Glue
• Paintbrush
• Kitchen Paper
• Water
• Cup
• Acrylic Paint (Reds, Browns, Greens and Black)
• Patience!

Optional:

Hair Dryer

The first thing that you'll want to do is to get all of your supplies ready. The last thing you want is to be searching for stuff halfway through the project; saves a lot of time, believe me!

Trust me when I say this can be quite a challenging project, which is odd considering its simplicity! This is due to the relationship with the cotton wool and the pva glue. The second your brush touches the cotton, it will stick to it and will not want to let go.

Before you apply the cotton, you'll want to tear it up and thin it out, this project is all about building layers. The last thing you want to do is slap on a load of thick pieces, it won't look very natural. Once you are satisfied with you pieces of cotton, hold them on the skull and get your glue covered paint brush ready, you'll want quite a bit of glue!

Apply the glue to the cotton and spread in the same direction, you want to try and create strands and bulges in the cotton, try to imagine what a burnt up head would look like! Use your imagination and a little bit of knowledge and try to create pieces of skin and folds where you think they would be visible - e.g. nose, jaw etc. Feel free to use my pictures for reference.

What you'll notice is that when you try to apply the cotton, a lot of it will just stick to the brush. Just keep applying more and more glue and eventually it will all just stay down; this can be a pretty messy project!

Keep on applying cotton, then once you're happy with your first layer, allow it to dry. This can take quite a while so it might be worth using a hair dryer or a heat gun to speed up the process a bit.

Once your first layer is dry. You will want to repeat the process, until your are happy with the depth and look of your skull. You really want to try and make your skull looked textured. Once you are happy, let it dry and then we will move onto the painting.

You may be happy with your skull and how it looks now, which is absolutely fine, but if you want to take it a little further, it's now time to get painting.

First thing first, please note that you do not want to be painting it how you usually would. You are going to be using very watery paint, pretty much coloured water.

You can paint it however you want but i'm going to tell you exactly how I did it.

First you will want to take your brown (preferably dark) and mix it with a small amount of dark green. Add a lot of water and keep mixing it until the water looks very murky and a dark dirty brown colour.

This is where your kitchen paper will come in handy. Scrub in some of the washed out paint onto the back of the skull (so if you don't like the colour it doesn't mater too much) using your paint brush, you really want to get into any crevices. Leave it for about 5-10 seconds then wipe it with the paper towel. The skull will have soaked up the paint in certain areas and any excess will be removed. If you are not happy with the colour, then mess around with the paints for a little while until you are satisfied. Once you are happy with the colour then continue to apply and wipe the paint all over the skull.

Once dry the skull should look old and quite dirty. You could leave your skull at this step if you wanted a mummy skull for example. If you want to carry on, then just keep on following my steps.

The next colours I used was dark red and brown. I mixed some dark red with a little bit of brown and kept on playing around a bit until I was happy with the colour. You will then want to add the water just like you did with the water. Repeat the previous steps, making sure to get into the crevices of your skull. Once dried you want your skull to look quite fleshy, but not like it's still bleeding.

If you want to go all the way then just follow this last simple step. I wanted my skull to look chard and burnt, so the last colour I added was black. However the way I applied it was completely different to the way I applied the two previous layers of paint.

You want your paint brush to be bone dry. Then mix it in with some black paint, do not use water! Proceed to try and remove as much of the paint as you can using your paper towels. Once happy with the amount on your brush, start to lightly apply the paint to your skull. As there is not much paint on the brush and it is so dry, it will only apply itself to the high and textured parts of the skull, rather than coating it in paint. Continue with this method until you are fully satisfied with the look.

Once dry, you will have your very own creepy looking skull; ideal for halloween!

I hope you have fun with this small creative project should you choose to make it, and once again I apologise for not having any pictures of my progress. I hope you have still enjoyed this instructable! I know I have, thank you for reading and happy halloween!:)