Halloween Rat Skeleton and Skeleton Warriors!

(originally written on Oct 26, 2015)

Happy Halloween! This Halloween season brought Rat Skeletons to the stores. They're by "Crazy Bonez" and the price ranges from $4.99 to $12.99, depending on where you shop- it's all the same Rat.

Here's a few shots of a work-in-progress. The Rats are perfectly-sized mounts for Skeleton Warriors, since there is a lack of properly-scaled horse skeletons (believe me, I searched for horse skeletons). I was at the library yesterday doing research on how saddles are made. I intend to do this completely old-school, making a saddle the same way that real-life horse saddles are made. You can see the wooden framework in the pictures. Eventually it will be covered with leather with functional reins, belt buckles and stirrups.

(Originally updated Oct 31, 2015)

Here's the progress on the Rat Skeleton saddle. It's 75% done. Just a few details left to add, like ties and a saddle blanket. And there's the bridles still to-do.

The saddle is leather on a wood frame. A week ago, I didn't know anything about saddles and how they're made. After a trip to the library, and a LOT of Internet searches and YouTube videos, I understand now how splendidly designed a Western saddle really is. And I gained a new vocabulary. So this is also an educational opportunity, as well as a "develop some new hobby skills" project.

(originally updated Nov 9, 2015)

The skeleton is the basic October Toys "Bone Titan Skeleton", with Testor's Create FX Acrylic Stain to bring out the details. The Rat Skeleton was also detailed in the same way. Afterwards, they were covered in a matte acrylic clearcoat.

The saddle is handmade by me. It took a little over a week to make it, authentic old style, with a wood frame (saddle tree) and covered with very thin leather. I didn't know anything about horse saddlery or tack, so I had to learn how to do this by reading books at the library, Internet searches and Youtube videos. Not bad for a first attempt!

A Rat skeleton and a Horse skeleton are very different, so I had to make some adaptations to the saddle to make it work.

I liked the way the harsh late-Fall sun came through my window, so I photographed this with natural lighting. The backdrop was a storm graphic mooched from the Internet (shhhh!) taped onto foam board.

At the risk of totally shattering the illusion, here's the actual photo shoot setup:

RELATED PAGES:
A Collection of Toy Skeletons