A Mandalorian Halloween - Putting it all together

 So in the previous two posts, you've seen how the Gonk droid came to be. Now you're going to see the rest of it.

First, we set out a 6x12 area in the front yard, laid down a tarp, and covered it in sand. And then more sand. LOTS of sand. 8x 60lb bags of sand, in fact.

I also set out the droid, to check blocking, and planted the solar-powered flood lights (from Amazon - GREAT lighting solution).

Next was prepping the stormtrooper helmets. I started with some black paint for the smudging - put it in an egg carton, then smudge it with a paper towel.  Then we used two techniques for the blood effects.  

The first was to use a Q-tip, drawing from the bottom, upwards. Why? Because blood droplets have directionality, so I wanted the biggest part of the drop to be at the bottom.  

The second was the big bloody handprint. To do that, I grabbed a regular latext glove, drizzled paint on it, then GLOOP onto the mask.

Once we had the paint on, it was time to drill the helmets out so they can go on their spears:

My first approach was to drill= through with a 7/8" spade bit (to accomodate the 3/4" PVC pipe). Nope - bad idea. The spade bit bites into the plastic, and I got my hand torn up. 

So technique #2 was to draw out the circle I wanted, then drill it out with a 3/16" bit, as in the last picture. That worked a lot better.

Once I had the holes roughed, I fined them up with a pair of tin snips, testing against a chunk of the 3/4" PVC pipe.

After that, we cut the pipe itself, taking about 6-8" off the end, then inserting an inline coupler into the middle (to give the helmet something to rest on. Spray pain that black, and you're ready to set up.

My original thought on staking the poles in was to  cut the ends at an angle, and pound then in. Nope, that didn't work. What DID work was to get some 2' long pieces of 3/8" rebar, and pound that into the ground, then socket the spear on top of that.  Put the helmet on the pole, add a spearpoint, and a couple pieces of fabric to mask things, and Bob's your uncle.

As you can see, we also laid out the pumpkins (never got around to carving them, actually)

Finally, we set up Grogu and the egg bowl. Hint - Limes have the right bouyancy.