Quick Window Figures

Hello Lumplings!  Well, you’re beloved Uncle Zombii done screwed up and forgot to take any pictures for this post, but he wants you to enjoy this really useful and not-at-all-half-assed project anyway.  Maybe I’ll post pictures of this if I do it again.  Maybe not.  Anyway, it’s free so you might as well read it.

Hello Lumplings!  As I’m sure you can all relate, the holiday season (by which I mean September and October, of course) can get quite busy, and sometimes you just can’t get around to all the spooky things you want to do.  That’s why it’s good to have a few ideas like these spooky window figures in your arsenal of Halloween tricks.  They look great, and take only minutes to set up.

At the simplest, all you need is a coat hangar, a coat or jacket you don’t plan on wearing until after Halloween (don’t worry, no harm will come to the clothing), and something to use as a head.

For my first figure, I grabbed a sport coat, and a white t-shirt and put them on a wooden hangar.  Then I hung the hangar on an artist’s easel, although almost anything would work; a tripod, a coatrack, the list goes on.  For the head, I used a styrofoam monster head I picked up cheap after last Halloween.  I slapped a quick coat of green paint on his face, and black on his hair.  Remember, you have permission to be sloppy, it only has to look good from a distance.  I left the eyes white, because I knew I wanted to throw a blacklight strobe on this guy and the white eyes and shirt would pop.  I attached the head to the hangar using a screw-in hook I happened to have, but string or tape would work too.

The second figure was even easier.  I took a styrofoam wig head, and painted the eyes black, and added some black tears. Super creepy.  Then, I added a couple blonde hair extensions from the dollar store.  I attached the head to a clear plastic hangar, which I hung some sheer curtains from.  I used some fishing line to tie the hangar to an A/C vent that is positioned right in front of a window and, there you have it, instant ghost!

The key to these figures’ effectiveness is getting the viewer’s mind to scare itself.  Have you ever walked into a dark room and been startled by shadowy figure in the corner, that turns out to be a pile of clothes, or something else equally benign?  It’s the same principal.  Our minds are coded to assume that any unclear object of vaguely human shape and size is a threat until proven otherwise.  All we have to do is set up something that looks like it might be threatening, make it hard to get a good look at, and let your victim’s neighbor’s minds do the rest.  Set these up in a second floor window, maybe with a sheer curtain in front and your good to go!  If you have the time and resources, you can also set up lights to make them really stand out.  I found lighting from below gives the best results, but you should experiment and see what works best for your setup.