The head part of the Sandworm.

This Sandworm prop is fairly easy to make, although there are a lot of steps in the process. Here’s how I made my version of Beetle Juice’s Sandworm:

Before we begin, this post will only cover the head portion of the Sandworm. I will follow up later with a Part 2 post of his body breaking the ground through the yard – a totally different type of tutorial!

Items Needed for Sandworm Head Tutorial:

• 2 Large Tomato Cages ( smaller ones will also work, but make a smaller base/Sandworm)
• Chicken Wire
• *Several Cans of 3″ Gap Spray Foam (I used 5 for upper body and 2 for sand base) 
• Filler: Random Broken Pieces of Styrofoam – like pieces that come in packaging or broken up coolers, 16 oz plastic bottles, left over pieces of pool noodles… 
• 2 Plastic Flower Pot Drainage Trays (Dollar Tree had them)
• A Waterproof Base or a lightweight piece of wood ( I used a plastic lid from a storage container)
• Titebond 3 Wood Glue
• White Rags Shop Paper Towels (DO NOT USE BLUE SHOP TOWELS – they don’t absorb enough of paste)
• **Outdoor Latex Paint ( check paint return markdown section to save $) 
• Water ( The ratio of paste will be approx. 2 cups Titebond 3, 1 cup Outdoor Latex Paint, and approx. 1/2 – 3/4 cup water)
• 1 Large Roll of Black Duct Tape
• 1 Large Roll of White Duct Tape
• Heavy Duty 16 Gauge Wire (Approx. 3 ft or so)
• Waterproof Acrylic Paint: Red, Clear/Red Sparkles(can be nail polish), Creme, Yellow, Black, and a mix of Green/Light Blue, and Dark Pink for the gums.
• Large, Medium, and Small Paint Brushes 
• A 5″ x 13″ piece of Black PVA Foam Sheet ( I used a small piece of thick yoga mat)
• 2 Cardboard Cone Shapes – Buy or Make Your Own
• Thin brown craft paper
• Tools for Cutting and Shaping Foam ( A bread knife and Box Cutter Blade was used for most of the shaping. A Dremel was used briefly to cut through 2 spots of wire, but it all depends on after the foam is set, and your ideal shape of the heads).
• An approx.1″ thick White Foam Sheet (used for large head teeth)
• Cheap Fake Acrylic Nails – buy a box of them (for inner head teeth)
• A Yoga Mat for the bottom half the of Sandworm
• A Hot Glue Gun 
• Foam Friendly Glue
• Zip ties about a 8 -12″ long
• Scissors
• Foam Clay, like BOHS on Amazon
• Kilz Exterior Primer
• Urethane 
• Clear Flex Rubber Spray
• Brown Spray Paint
• Permanent Markers: Orange and Red
• Toothpicks
• A thin metal poke instrument – like a metal skewer
• Protection of Work Area/Creator: plastic drop sheets, wear rubber or latex gloves while using spray foam, and wear clothes that can get ruined. Wear a respirator when using urethane/spray paint and do it outside, where it is well ventilated. 

* The amount of cans needed depends upon how much filler is used. ** Can be optional in the glue/water mache mix, but you’ll use far more glue with a ratio of 3 cups glue to approx. 3/4 – 1 cup water, for each batch of paper mache. The consistency is also better when using latex outdoor paint – so it is highly recommended that it is used.    

A Quick Overview in Pictures of How the Sandworm was Created and Our Beetle Juice-Themed Yard in the Making

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Creating The Frame, Base, and Heads

1. Stack the 2 tomato cages – one inside other (see images above). Wire them at their circle intersections so they will not move apart in any way. 
2. Add heavy duty 16 gauge wire to shape the heads by attaching the wire to the top pieces of the cages. Insert a flower plant drainage tray or another light piece of sorts into the highest circle of the cages. This is done to keep the filling in place, and limit the amount of spray foam needed. *If you want the entire piece to be made the same way, as well as have more time and money to spend on far more cans of spray, forget the tray.
3. Find a piece of wood or use a container lid to make a base for the Sandworm. It should be wide enough to go past the bottom circle of the cage, at least 8 inches. (You will need that space later to put a jug or two of water down on the base to keep it from tipping over, while working on it). Drill holes with either a Dremel or Drill around the base every 6 inches or so. Slip the 16 gauge wire through and attach the base to the cage bottom. 
4. Find any Styrofoam, pool noodles, or waterproof lightweight items (such as plastic 16 oz. bottles) that can be slipped through the chicken wire/ top cage area(not below the drainage tray). Remember, the more it is filled with bottles and Styrofoam pieces, the less spray foam you’ll need. 
5. Place those drop sheets down and around the sandworm frame. Put your rubber gloves on and spray the foam into all the crevices and places that need filling (only down to the drainage tray). Remember that spray foam expands, and sometimes you need less than you think. Notice my pic above of the differences in outer mouth and the inner mouth. The paper covered outer mouth prevented an overspill of foam and forced it to go tighter into crevices inward. The inner mouth wasn’t papered. It will need more carving out to look like the inner head of the Sandworm. Even after it was carved, I wasn’t please, so I added 2 cardboard cones to the ends, and cut out the space for the mouth area to look more natural. The outer paper was mostly peeled off after the foam dried, but it didn’t matter because all would be covered with the paper towel/glue mache.
6. The next step is preparing the paper towels/glue mix. First, make sure the towels are cut or separated BEFORE you whip up a batch of glue mix (It dries faster than you realize and your hands are a mess, once started). The ratio of glue, latex paint, and water is found in the ingredient list. If you’re not using latex paint, see the asterisk mentions below the ingredient list, for those ratios. Mix it in a paint pan or I just used an aluminum foil baking pan, so it would have enough room to place a single flat sheet of paper towel and then when I was finished, the pan could get thrown out.
7. Dipping the paper towel: Do one sheet at a time. Place it flat into the mixture. Flip the dry side over into the mixture, and wring it out above the pan. Make sure the whole sheet is thoroughly wet. Now, you may want to throw a couple of sheets in at a time – don’t. It makes it very hard to ensure all are covered and doubly harder to separate/smooth out the pieces. To obtain a smooth finish, you will have to make sure each sheet is free of fold-overs or creases when applying to the heads and down to where the drainage dish is. From below the drainage dish, there will be nothing but frame for now. 
8. After covering all the areas needed with the paper towel mache, let it dry overnight. By morning, it should be dry and ready for a second round of towels/mix. If it’s not dry, you’ll have to wait for it to be completely dry to add a second layer. When adding the second layer, this is where you begin to add features: Roll pieces of towel to shape mouth edges on both heads. Ensure the inside of both mouths are sealed with towels in the deepest parts and crevices in the back of their tongues. Make sure there are no other areas you might have missed. Let dry overnight, or use a blow dryer to lessen the drying time. 
9. While everything is drying, cut out the eyes for both heads from Styrofoam, or you can use foam balls cut in half for the larger, and cut smaller eyes from a sheet of Styrofoam. Paint the one larger set of eyes red, and let them dry completely. Leave the other smaller set unpainted. 
10. Once the heads are also completely dry, hot glue or foam glue the eyes onto the heads. Make sure the glue is dried before moving to the next step.
11. Paint the entire head areas with Exterior Kilz Primer. Let it completely dry and apply a second coat. Let it dry again at least an hour or more, before moving to next step.  
12. Take foam clay and create a gum line inside the smaller inside head. If you’re having issues with the foam clay not sticking, dip your finger in water, and rub it in areas the clay will be placed. The base lip lines made previously with the towels, can now be covered with the clay to accentuate the features. Let the clay dry over night or longer, depending upon how thick you’ve laid down the clay foam. 
13. Once the clay is dried completely, you can start painting the features. The inside head was painted in a cream color, all the way down to the lower neck line (see pics). Both of the heads have lip lines painted in a color mix of green and light blue. The tongue area and inside the mouth of the larger outer head is painted gray. The inner head tongue/roof of mouth was painted red. Towards the outer edges of the inner tongue, black was used for shading. Hopefully, it added depth/realism.  The gums of the inner head were painted a dark pink. The big red eyes (on the outside head) were coated in this acrylic clear with red sparkles Glitterific paint, but nail polish could do the same. The smaller eyes of the inner head were lined with black paint, then the iris/pupil were drawn in with permanent markers in the colors orange/red.
14. While you’re waiting for all that to dry and need to rest off your feet, start cutting the white foam sheet into triangles. They should be about one inch to one and a half inches in length. I then shaped those teeth by cutting off the hard corners, to round them. Push toothpicks in each one. I used at least 50 white/black striped teeth, but made extra because some teeth may curve better than others, which will help with the realism of it. To make the stripes on the teeth: Don’t bother trying to do this with the black marker – it’s hard to add it to Styrofoam. While holding on by the toothpick, paint each line (three in total) on each tooth with a small, thin paint brush. Set it aside to dry.
15. Making the inside head’s teeth: Cut the artificial nails in half, and cut more than you think you’ll need. 
16. Everything on the head should be painted well, and dried. But before you can put any of the teeth in, you have to seal the entire area with painted on urethane. If you try to  seal the head after the teeth are in place, you’ll end up not getting all the areas inside the mouths well, which could lead to water damage from the elements. MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN A WELL-VENTILATED AREA FOR PAINTING ON THE URETHANE and even while it’s drying. The fumes can really make you sick and cause permanent damage. It would be prudent to wear a respirator too, while painting it on. Once the first coat of urethane is dry, usually several hours – do a second coat. 
17. Making the Curly Tongue: I had bought a few black yoga mats for a different project and had some leftover. So I took an approx. 5″ wide by 13″ long piece of mat and shaped it (taking very little off those measurements) into a leaf. I then hot glued a piece of the heavy wire in the middle of the leaf (lengthwise). Once it was dried/glued solid, I bent the leaf shape into a cone, then made stripes with white duct tape. The tongue will get hot glued inside the inner head mouth BEFORE the teeth get placed.  
18. Making the lower part of the Sandworm: A yoga mat was what I used to cover the bottom half of the Sandworm. It is attached to the same metal circle that holds the plastic tray. Work a zip tie around that metal circle of the tomato cage and through a hole made into the mat. Zip tie it tight, and cut off the excess plastic from the ties. Then use the black duct tape to hide the connection, and make a wide black stripe. Then follow with a white duct tape stripe, and so on.
19.  Placing the teeth: With the second coat of urethane completely dry, find something to use as a hole poker for the teeth to get pushed into their place. At this point you may be thinking it is easier to just poke holes all around, then place the teeth. DON’T MAKE MULTIPLE HOLES AT A TIME. I actually did this without realizing the teeth, depending upon their width and shape, needed a different space per tooth. So I had just put holes into the waterproofed head, that I didn’t need! Out came the glue gun, and I filled the multiple holes. I then went one by one – deciding where the hole would be in comparison to the shape of the mouth, tooth size, and curve shape. You may be thinking, Ugh…This is gonna take forever! But it is well worth the time and effort.
20. Adding the inside head’s tongue/teeth: Remember to glue the striped tongue in now, if you haven’t done so already. It will be quite difficult to do after the teeth are placed. I used two different techniques while placing the acrylic nail teeth in. If the gum line was vertical/high enough, I could just hot glue the tooth in with no problem. But when the gum line changed in depth or angle, it wasn’t that simple. So for those times, I took a box cutter blade and made a very small slit into the clay foam. I inserted the nail tooth, and then topped off the clay/nail connection with some hot glue to ensure they stayed put.
21. Waterproof at least one more time with Flex Rubber Spray: After everything is done, you’ll want to preserve your creation. Even though urethane waterproofs, I would still recommend spraying the entire Sandworm with a rubber spray. After all the effort put into your project, don’t you think it’s best to make sure it lasts for years? 
22. Adding the “sand” after staking it into the ground: Find a few odd pieces of Styrofoam, plastic food containers, etc. and line them around the base. They will be used as filler/heighten the sand. Put those rubber gloves back on, and spray foam all over the odd pieces on the base, ensuring you are covering the base completely. Allow the foam to dry at least an hour or two. Using the brown spray paint for color, spray over the foam randomly, leaving a little bit of foam color, here or there.  

If you need any clarity on any of the directions or have other comments or questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I posted this quickly after someone requested the tutorial today, and I couldn’t let her down – especially with it being so close to Halloween. So please go easy on me, if you see an error in my post. I hope there will be many Sandworm makers out there and if you did create one, please send me a pic, so I can highlight your work, too. Also, I will be adding a Part 2 of Making a Sandworm Body, in the next few days or so. Thanks!