The baby vamp from Nightmare B4 Christmas. Copyrights reserved, Debbie Morrow
My previous post gave a tutorial on the duck that appears in the same scene as the baby vampires in The Nightmare Before Christmas (NBC) movie. Although in the movie the vampire didn’t ride inside the duck, I couldn’t help myself by making it so. It seemed like a fun and almost “Burton-ish” thing to do.
At first I looked at what others had done in their tutorials for making the vampire. They were either foam or stuffed and that just wasn’t what I was looking for. Since I was already creating more doll zombies and clowns, I sat there one night and thought, “why not turn a doll into a baby vampire?” So here is the quick tutorial to transform a plastic baby doll into a NBC vampire.
You’ll Need:
A Baby Doll that is entirely plastic or rubber
Black Rubber Sealer Spray
A Small Piece of Foam Poster Board, Black
All-Purpose Super Glue Gel Tube
Outdoor Acrylic Paints: Black, White, Red, Yellow
Black Material (for the cape)
Wire ( a little heavier than floral wire)
A Hot Glue Gun/Glue Stick
Paint brushes, White Chalk
Pencil and Paper (to make cape and ear patterns)
Take the baby doll into the garage or outside and spray it down with the black rubber sealant. Do not expect the whole thing to be covered with one time. You’ll have to go back a few hours in between to re-position the doll and respray. Repeat until covered completely with black sealant.
Depending upon the size of your doll, make a petal shape on your paper, cut it out and try the “ears” on the doll to see if they need to be bigger or smaller. Once you have that shape down, use the pattern over the foam board and cut it out.
Glue the ears to the top of the doll’s head. Once it has cured and ears will not move, paint the edges with black acrylic paint to cover any white foam showing.
Once the ears are dry, take some white chalk to draw the outlines of the face, nose, and eyes. Don’t worry if it’s not right the first time, chalk wipes off easily and you can redo.
Once the face is to your satisfaction, follow by painting over your lines. Even if you make a mistake here, just go back with either white or black to fix later. Once the black and white is done, add the rest of the detail of yellow eyes, teeth, etc.
While everything is drying overnight, work on the cape by looking at pattern in my image, and cutting a piece similar in your own paper. If it looks correct in size, place it over doubled black fabric. The paper pattern should lay with the folded crease at the top. See image. Trace out the paper pattern on the fabric and cut but NOT at the top crease.
Open up the two cape cut-out and hot glue 3 or 4 wires on the inside. Then close up the two capes and hot glue together at the edges. Attach the cape to the vampire and hot glue the neck band together. Bend the wires to appear as if wind is making the cape fly in the air.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask them.