Road Kill being carried by a Ghoul Costume

I looked on the internet for ideas for illusion costumes. I liked the idea of making people believe that I had been ripped in half and was being carried around by a big ghoul. I knew if I was going to pull this off I would need to have convincing guts. Most of the reference I found look very fake and cheap. Usually guts were made with a pile of great stuff foam and red spray paint. I knew I needed to do way better than that.

I started out with a small backpack and an old couch cushion. I used zip ties and duct tape to attach it to the pack. This created the torso of my dummy. I put a short piece of PVC pipe vertically down the middle of the cushion to create the ghoul's neck. I bought on old plastic skull decoration from Goodwill that had one broken off fang. I broke off the other fang to make him look symmetrical, then colored his teeth with markers. I found an old rubber rubber mask at Goodwill that had bad teeth on it. I cut out the rubber teeth and stretched the mask over the skull. I glued the gum line of the rubber mask to the gum line of the skull, now the new rubber face had really creepy teeth and a good sturdy head. Next I used marker to make the skulls eyes black. I glued marbles into the skull's eyes so there would be a highlight in the ghoul's eyes. I cut a hole in the bottom of the skull and put it on top of the torso. I made the ghoul's arms with foam water float noodles. The ghoul's hands are gloves stuffed with packing peanuts and wire to make the hands grab and hold on to me. The ghoul is completed with a hooded sweatshirt and bulky down parka. The guts were made by using an old plastic salad bowl as a base. I covered the bottom of the bowl with great stuff foam. I put flesh colored fabric over the foam, and squeezed out the foam to the edge of the bowl. Next I flipped the bowl right side up and put more great foam in the bowl. I covered this with more flesh fabric and squeezed the foam out to the edge again. This foam made up the fatty cells just under the skin. I made organs, vertebrae, ribs and intestines out of a laundry soap bottle, water bottle, bath sponge, Nerf football, packing peanuts, wine corks, fishing line, wire, zip ties, rubber latex paint, markers, acrylic paint, and clear gloss acrylic. I strung packing peanuts onto fishing line and then wrapped rubber latex paint around this string making lumpy fleshy intestines. The rubber latex can be painted out thin on a flat surface. Once it dries, the string of packing peanuts can be rolled up like a sausage. I colored these with markers. I put a rubber band around 3 wine corks, then added paper mache onto it to create vertebrae. I used a rolled up paper towel covered with paper mache to make the ribs. I glued the bones and organs into the bowl and covered it with stage blood. I used gloss acrylic to make it all look wet. I cut a hole in the back of an over-sized shirt, so I could put my head and arms through the back of the shirt. I used zip ties to attach the bowl of guts into the shirt. I cut the excess shirt off ragged and doused it with stage blood. I covered my cammo pants with stage blood to make it look as though I had been bleeding massively. As soon as I put on the back pack and zip the bottom of the parka, the illusion kicks in. Once I put my head and arms through the back of the shirt, I become! a man ripped in half. To top it all off, I wore a skin headed wig and a mask. Now people are not really sure just what's real and what's not.