COVID-era Halloween Candy Distribution Gator

Motivation

2020 was a long year. And I, with my privilege and safety of working from home, found myself with a lot of time and energy. By then, my love for and obsession with extreme Halloween preparation was still full-throttle, and it was my first year with a house to decorate.

Generally, I am pretty fixated on “swamp stuff” and the alligator is the ultimate mascot for such a theme. Because SF was still in full shelter-in-place/social-distancing mode, I had the idea to create a Halloween candy dispenser/distributor that met social and safety requirements of the time. Thus, the life-size papier maché alligator was born.

Design

Because we had just moved a few months prior, I had ample materials at my disposal (cardboard, multiple types of foam, packing paper, etc). I had never sculpted or constructed anything ever before, so I started with google searches of 3D puzzles which gave me a foundation for the design.

For the skeleton structure, I tested a tiny card stock version as proof of concept.

Build

Form of the head

Bottom of the head

Full structure of body arranged

I started free-hand cutting shapes and connector slits into cardboard, and after connecting the pieces, covered the skeleton structure with a skin of painters tape. I found rolls of 3-inch wide tape that worked well for this.

You’ll see, especially after the weight of paper maché and glue, that this skin isn’t sturdy enough. If I were to do this again, I would have given the interior a lot more structure, either with more (and flat) pieces of cardboard in the skeleton and/or an initial layer of another more sturdy but flexible material as I taped together the skin.

Spent an afternoon with a friend getting messy with Elmer’s glue and our neighbor’s newspapers.

Prime and Paint

You can really see in the last image how the paper maché and the paint weighed down the skin resulting in an unfortunate sunken look, especially noticeable on the main body.

Details

Teeth

I had an absolutely perfect flexible and squishy foam that I cut into teeth and shaped within the mouth which I secured with toothpicks. I really like the yellow detail on the gums.

Manicure

The Jaw Hinge

I originally used a very sturdy piece of folded cardboard, however with the weight of the head’s top, this did not ultimately hold. I ended up propping this open with chopsticks in the back of the mouth.

A complete head!

Assembly

As you maybe noticed, I didn’t actually make a full-body alligator with paper maché, but you can see the vision here with the green “moss” where the body is partially emerged from a swampy water.

We placed an individual layer of candy in its mouth with Swamp Rules/instructions to accompany him. I really wanted this to be an animatronic jaw that moved and snapped with motion detection, but that is well-out of my wheel house. But we did place a portable speaker inside the body to simulate growling and swamp sounds.

Added some swamp stuff for more swamp energy.

And there is the final swamp on Halloween night, complete with full blue moon.

This project will forever live fondly in my memory. It excited, challenged, and occupied me with a creative outlet during a generally un-motivating time.

It also brought me closer to my neighbors and brought a bit of joy to our block.