Before taking my family to Beetle Juice, the Musical, I wasn’t sure what our yard haunt would be this year. But after seeing the musical and remembering how much we loved the original movie, there was no question about it.

I’ve always taken certain scenes and characters from movies/shows and tried to replicate them in my own creative way. Here’s my version of the hunter, the shrunken-head man in the waiting room from the original version of Beetle Juice, and a quick tutorial of how I made him. I belong to several Halloween groups, and some call this character Bob, where others insist on his name Harry the Hunter. Creating their heads are basically the same, except for one being brown, the other blue, with little to no hair.

Supplies Needed (Please Read All Directions First)

• A Small, Plastic or Styrofoam Skull ( My base plastic skull came from Dollar Tree)
• 2 – 10 ft. PVC  Pipes (can be 1/2″ to 1″) 
• PVC Couplers to match the size the diameter of your PVC pipe as follows: 1 Cross, 1 “T”, 8 elbows, and depending upon your choice of elbow/arm bends, 2 more 45 degree elbows.
• *Optional PVC All-in-One Step Glue
• Clear Duct or Packing Tape
• Foam Clay – BOHs Foam Clay is a good choice
• A Toothpick, Butter Knife, and other tools for shaping clay
• 2 Plastic eyeballs (Another Dollar Tree find)
• Black Twine or Black Thin Cord
• Empty 2 Liter Bottles: At least 12
• 2 Skeleton Hands or Make your Own
• Black Duct Tape
• Padding or Other Materials to stuff the body   
• A Hot Glue Gun
• *Optional: Heat Protector Finger Tip Covers (Dollar Tree find, well worth it!)
• 2 Shades of Brown Paint – A Dark Brown, and a Highlighting Color
• Paint Brushes
• A Black Permanent Marker
• A Package of Brown or Black Hair Extensions
• 2 or 3 Black Hair Bands
• Heavy Gauge Wire (about 2 ft. for holding hair upward in place/attaching hands)
• Cutting Tools (such as a Dremel, drill, and/or PVC cutter, and scissors)
• A Large or XXL Tan Button Down Shirt/Pants for Bob’s original look 
• A Scarf – black or one of your choice
• A Pair of Brown or Tan Hiking or Work Boots
• *Optional Clear Flex Spray to keep hair styled upright

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Directions: 

1. Cut an approx. 8″ piece of PVC pipe that will be the neck for your skull. I used 1″ diameter for neck, but 1/2″ for the rest of the body. See step 12 for more info. Cut a hole into the bottom of your skull, the same diameter of that PVC neck, and insert the piece as far as it can go inside the skull. This neck will serve as a holder for painting, and allow the head to better dry without touching a surface. Find a heavy cup, box, or something similar that will hold the head upright without falling. Test that holder now. 
2. Once you’ve found that holder for drying, take some foam clay and sculpt it on the entire skull.  Add thicker layers around eyes, enhance nose/holes, poke suture holes around the upper and lower mouth. Add lines where needed in forehead, around mouth, eyes, and closer to where hairline will be (see image in gallery above). Once satisfied with sculpting, set up the neck/head into the holder you’ve previous tested in #1. 
3. Preferably, let dry overnight. Clay may seem completely dry with a test of pressing a fingernail and leaving no marks, but since there are varying thicknesses of clay on the skull, it’s best to be sure. Leave overnight to dry. 
4. Painting: Once you’re certain the clay is dried completely, take your darker color brown and paint the entire skull, making sure you get into all the creases/holes, and make it extra dark in the curve between cheekbone/jawbone. Let dry and repeat as needed. 
5. Use your highlighting brown paint and go over the eye lines, parts of the nose, and the mouth. Think of where light shines on it and add the lighter color to those places. (Don’t worry if you add too much, you can always go back with darker brown, once the lighter has dried). 
6. Eyes: Cut your plastic eye balls in half, check sizing in your skull sockets, and make adjustments as needed. Hot glue the cut/sized eye halves into the skull sockets.
7. Use the black marker to make round pupils – in a side-glance look as in the movie, or whatever pleases you. 
8. Adding the Hair: Try to measure the length of hair you’ll need to go into an upright pony tail, and go a few inches longer. Place the pony tail band tight around the hair extension, before you cut. This will keep the hair together from the start, rather than trying to place that band afterwards, and fighting stray hairs. 
9. Make sure you know where you’re hairline will begin, and run a line of hot glue along that line. Spread the hair extension/press the edges into the hot glue line (hopefully, you’re wearing finger tip protectors as suggested in the supply list). Be careful, this is where you can get burned easily. Don’t be discouraged if the hair isn’t perfect and you’ve missed spots or over glued. Adding the hair was the hardest part of this whole build. If you see that you’ve over glued and hot glue is visible, you can either touch the tip of the hot glue gun to those spots to melt them to more invisible, or add brown paint to them afterwards. Let hot glue dry completely between hair/skull before trying to style the hair better.
10. Styling Hair: With hair attached well around the skull, flip the head forward (like you’re leaning forward with your own head when you want to make a high ponytail). Have the hair fall towards the front of the skull face, and add extra hair ties, or even wrap the wire to make the hair stand upward – once the skull is upright. I had to add a piece of wire, bands, and a small piece of black duct tape to get it right. 
11. Making the Mouth Stitches: Cut out the pieces of black twine that will go in a crisscross manner over the skull’s mouth. You want to make sure the string is long enough to be protruding slightly. Put a dab of hot glue into a stitch hole, push the string end into a hole, and wait for it to dry completely. Repeat. Remember to go back and forth between holes and string to make a cross pattern over the mouth. If hot glue is visible or messy, paint over, or heat obvious glue spots with the tip of hot glue gun, until it melts clearer.  
12. The PVC Body: The length of this PVC pipe project is actually determined by the size of the clothes you’ve bought for your prop. I have several posts showing PVC prop body builds, but my Making Sally From The Nightmare Before Christmas one will also give you another image (besides the ones in the gallery above), for reference. Don’t forget to add the length/width of couplers when checking each fit of the pant waist, the shoulder to shoulder within the shirt, the correct length between the hips to shoulders, and the leg/arm lengths. The arms can be configured differently depending upon how you want to pose your prop, so you may want to pick up a few extra elbow couplers. It all depends on how you want to position Bob.
13. Cut all the PVC pipe and attach all the couplers to recheck the fit of the clothing. DO NOT glue each coupler/pipe together, if you’re thinking of changing Bob’s position in the future and/or haven’t checked the PVC body inside the clothing. I have worked around the permanence of PVC gluing by using clear box or duct tape. In order for that tape to last/hold the PVC body together tightly, you’ve got to wind it around the elbow/pipes several times. 
14. Once the PVC body is made to your specifications, start cutting the 2 liter bottles: remove the small neck top (giving enough space for your size PVC to fit), and remove the rippled bottoms. See configurations of the bottles in the gallery above. Some bottles can simply be slipped over the PVC sections, and others will need to be cut down the side too. Tape those pieces together, once you have them positioned correctly. 
15. Place the shirt/pants on the soda bottle PVC body. Fill in the gaps of space within the clothing with padding, plastic grocery bags, various pieces of Styrofoam, pool noodles, etc. Add the boots to the legs. Even if you have Bob standing, as long as the PVC leg ends are firmly in place, it should look fine. I have drilled holes in the heel parts of boots, so the PVC  shoe/leg goes over the rebar I have in ground. It makes it pretty stable. If you are having him sit like mine, just slip the PVC pipe in the heel section of boot. Tie shoes well, to tighten.
16. Attaching the Head: The neck piece of your PVC goes into the top of the cross coupler that is attached to your shoulders. If for some reason you’ve used a different size PVC piece (I actually went to 1″ diameter for the neck attached to head, and 1/2″ for rest of body), you’ll either need to slip it over a smaller piece of your PVC pipe, or get a coupler to match the difference. The bigger neck size I thought would look better, and all I had to do is slide the 1″ over the 1/2″ neck, and use black duct tape to cover the base of the neck. Don’t forget to wrap the scarf around neck and tuck into the shirt.
17. The Hands:  Use some adult-size skeleton hands as the base for the hands. Or you can make them (see link in supply list).  You can either cover the hands completely with black duct tape, or spray paint black. Attaching them, I used a few inches of heavy duty wire duct taped to hands and then taped at the wrist areas of the PVC body.       

So there you have it. Creating the hunter isn’t so hard. Anyone can do it. If you like this tutorial, and would like to see others, please leave a comment, or send me a message, and don’t forget to subscribe below.  Anyone out there that’s made the hunter or Bob, please send me your pics. I always love to see other people’s creations. Thanks!