DIY Halloween Dementors by Linda Robertson Reinhardt




DIY HALLOWEEN SPECTRES / DEMENTORS

SUPPLIES you need to make ONE SPECTRE

A human-sized or larger foam skull  

Foam is better for this, but if you feel up to drilling holes in plastic, go for it.

Masking tape 

At least one whole roll. You don’t want to run out or skimp here.

Paint 

I used black, red,and off-white acrylic craft paint.

Stiff Heavy Gauge wire or several straightened-out hangers

Some hangers are lightweight wire. They *could* work, but I strongly recommend the stiffer ones. They may be a bit difficult to shape, but that means they will retain the shape and last longer. I made mine in 2019 and have used them every year since.

**Reserve one hanger wire for the assembly at the end. THIS HANGER SHOULD HAVE THE HOOK SECTION REMAIN as-is, while the rest is kind of straightened.

Heavy floral wire- You’ll use this to bind the wires for the fingers together at the wrist/higher.

This is what I used. It cut easily and I could use ‘slices’ that were round, or cut longways for straight pieces.

A round Styrofoam cooler - This is going to be the rib cage of your spectre. Size it accordingly for the size of the skull.

A 16-inch (minimum) to 24-inch (maximum) piece of 2x4 or 2x2- This is going to be the shoulders of your spectre. Size it accordingly for the size of the skull.

Drill two holes in the center, about 3/8 of an inch apart; these holes run top-to bottom and will be for the skull and rib cage. 

Drill two more holes on either end** about an inch or two from either end, **these holes run from front to back and will be for the arms.

A few sheets of Newspaper to keep paint off of surfaces.

Paint brushes - To paint the skulls and hands.

Wood shims or paint stir-sticks- At least 2 shims. One paint stick can be broken into 2 pieces. You’ll be drilling a hole in the center once you’ve sized them.

TOOLS you need to make ONE SPECTRE

Drill for the wood

A drill bit a little bigger than necessary for the wires to fit through

Pliers to bend the wires

*A clamp vice is handy but not absolutely necessary. You’ll see the one I used in the pictures.

QUICK OVERVIEW of the STRUCTURE:

Before you get creative with the skull, you need to make a hole from the top. The spectre needs to hang, and the foam will not support it year after year. So the wooden piece needs to take the weight. The idea is that the wires of the ‘arms’ comes down from the ‘shoulders.’ The cooler ‘rib cage’ will attach to the bottom middle of the ‘shoulders’ with a wire that run up through the ‘shoulders’ and through the hole in the skull. 

Please read the instructions through fully and check out the pictures, as that will help you see how it goes together.


THE SKULLS

 



Here you see two skulls. On the right is the skull as I bought it. On the left is the one after I created the new creepy mouth and painted it.

What you can’t see is the hole in the top. (Sorry)

I used the insulation foam to create a circle of ‘lips’ the right size for the skull, then wrapped the foam in masking tape. I taped it in place, then used bits of foam to fill in the cheek area and taped those in place as well. 

Once the taping was all secure, I painted the skull. The masking tape color was pretty close to the skull color anyway, so I didn’t feel I needed to be heavy-handed with the paint. I darkened the top of the skull with watered down paint, but you don’t have too. It’s going to be covered. 

After the black was dry, I went back and added some red to the lips and made some LIGHT streaks of off-white along the cheeks.

NECK

You’ll need 6-8 inches of the foam to hide the wires running from the shoulders to the head, so why not paint some off-white bones on them? I know 6-8 sounds like its too long, but you may be trimming it later, and better to have too much here than to have to go back and do it again.

Here’s a picture of the completed skulls, and the neckpiece off to the side.

CREEPY! AM I RIGHT????




THE SHOULDERS, ARMS and HANDS

ARMS



Figure out how long you want the arms to be. Probably a full hanger’s length or more. Reserving room to feed the upper arm area up through the wooden shoulder piece, create the arm. I suggest running two hangers together for the upper arm, then adding two more at the elbow area. You will use the floral wire to bind the forearm wires both above the elbow and again below the elbow. Use the pliers to tighten the floral wire, then go ahead and put the bend in, so you know where the elbow is length-wise. 

HANDS: (not attached to arms yet)

You may choose to have fewer fingers, but I went with five. And I made them extra long to be creepier. **Remember to make a left and right, with the finger length varied to match a real hand.

Here you see the finger wires bound together with black floral wire and kind of shaped.



This is where the clamp vise comes in handy. (see left hand pic below)


I put the ‘wrist’ into the clamp and proceeded to make the fingers. You can definitely make this without the clamp, but having it held steadily in place made the process easier and faster for me.  

I cut pieces of the insulation foam to thicken them, and pointier bits for the fingertips, securing them on the wire with masking tape.

Once you get a few fingers completed the shape really starts to come together and you’ll be able to see where the palm area needs to be, though you shouldn’t pad and tape it until all the fingers of that hand are completed.

When you make the second hand, match the finger length and palm accordingly.

In this picture of the right hand, you can see some of the foam before I’d fully covered the finger with the masking tape. Note the pointy fingertip! 


Working the tape will definitely help create and maintain the shape.


Here are my pair of spectre hands, left is palm up, and right is palm down. SOOO CREEPY!
 


When the hands are complete, attach them to the forearm with the floral wire. Use the pliers to tighten them. I separated the wires and padded them to represent the ulna and radius bones, but after draping the fabric at the end, this didn’t show, so don’t feel like you have to do that bit. 



But do pad out the wrist appropriately because it will show. I padded and taped the rest of the arm because I felt it would will help secure the bindings and ensure my spectre lasted for years.

In the picture above you can see I padded and taped shoulders on the wood, and you can see on the upper left how the wires feed through the ‘shoulder’ from back to front. I twisted the back of the arm wires around the wood to ensure they did not pull loose.

Paint the taped sections of the hands and arms black.

THE RIB CAGE

I cut the braided cord and discarded the lid of the cooler.The cooler itself, I inverted, and used padding and tape to add ribs, then covered them with black t shirt material. In the end, the ribs don’t really show up except in the bright light of day, so maybe save yourself that bit of time and effort.

Get the wooden shim or paint stir stick. Thisis going into the rib cage as a support for the foam. You can *usually* break the thin ends offofa shim with your hands, but whether you do that or try to snap the paint stick, be careful of splinters. Once the shimis sized to fit into the bottom of the cooler (i.e. the top of the rib cage) determine the center of the shim and drill a hole.

It’s almost time to assemble the spectre. SQUEEE!

Now, you’ll take the final hanger that has been straightened except for the hook section, feed it down through the skull, through the neck section of foam (which will hold the skull up), through the wooden ‘shoulder’ piece. DO NOT BEND IT YET. 

NOTE: It doesn’t really matter which hole you use here. One is for the head, the other for the ribcage.)The important thing here is that the hanger wire has the hook sticking out of the skull as a handy way of hanging the spectre. It can be close to the skull or higher up, however you want it to be. I put mine close to the skull, then bent it around to form a circle. I use an S hook through that circle to hang mine, but you don’t have to do it that way.

Check the way your spectrelooks, and decide if you want to shorten the neck area by cutting some of the foam away. Once you’re happy with the neck length, THEN bend the neck wire around the ‘shoulder’ wood to secure it. (You can use wire cutters to trim the wire if you want.) Using more straight wire, make a twist in one end and slide the shim/paint stick over it. Next, slide that up through the rib cage cooler, then through the second center hole in the shoulder wood piece. Bend to secure the rib cage at the height that seems right to you.

Here are some in-process shots to help you see what’s going on.
 


Now, the fun bit: draping on the creepy fabric. 

I started with a black plastic tablecloth, put it over the shoulders, let it drape and cut the excess into ribbons. Then I added the hood and sleeves using black and gray cheesecloth that I bought at Dollar Tree ($1 per yard—can’t beat that at any fabric store, but Dollar Tree only carries this item at Hallowe’en. Used 4 or 5 on each of my spectres, and added another 3 to each the following year.





The tape has kind of a peeling quality to it that adds to the creep factor.
 


WITH EVEN MORE DRAPING




   
Yes. My granddaughter put the Hallowe’en cupcake rings on the spectre’s fingers. He liked them. I think.


Covenant with the Devil 
The Immanence Series
Book One
Linda Robertson Reinhardt

Genre: Dark Fantasy
Publisher: Igni House Publishing
Date of Publication: Oct 31, 2022
ISBN: 9781685440077 
ASIN: B0BKJXJZMY
Number of pages:   506 pages
Word Count: 118,000
Cover Artist: Linda Robertson Reinhardt

Book Description: 

After a car crash killed her family and left her in a coma, divine intervention provided Jovienne with a set of enhanced skills and directed her into Andrei’s care. He’s instructed her through years of intense demon slayer training.

Before sending her into the grueling final test, Andrei reveals a truth he’s kept hidden: if she passes, she will be transformed into an angel. His deception threatens to undermine her efforts, but after the hard-won battle, Jovienne is remade.

She quickly realizes this isn’t the life she was promised, and it isn’t what she wants. But there’s more to Andrei’s secrets and lies, and, worse, the man she trusted has manipulated her into eternal servitude.

Good thing she has a few secrets of her own. They might be the only thing that could set her free.

Listen to the Immanence Soundtrack

Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/qG3suMw5SvQ

Amazon  

Excerpt Book One

While washing up the dinner dishes, Andrei heard Jovienne’s door open down the hall. She called, “Sun’s gonna set soon. You ready?”

He rinsed the last dish and placed it in the rack. “Yeah. Are you?” He moved to lean in the doorway, drying his calloused hands on a dishtowel.

On one knee, Jovienne tightened the lacing on her boot. “Almost.”

He glanced around the empty living room where they sometimes sparred. The walls had been drab green long before they moved in. Stains marred the ceiling, some from age and others from leaks. The floor wasn’t much better. Worn and dark, the boards had little shine left. They all creaked under foot.

He imagined the abhadhim had far better living quarters than this. Though he was stuck here, she wasn’t. She deserved better.

She stood and tossed her head, resettling her long mane of black hair. Rocking from her heels to her toes, she tested the feel of the footwear, then approached the wide wooden cabinet. As usual, she studied the weapons on the shelves. She always started by loading her pockets with throwing stars. Next, she would strap leather dagger sheaths to her wrists.  

He smiled to himself when she did just that. He knew her well.

Her every move seemed part of a dance, a choreographed routine she’d performed for years. He noted every detail as her fingers worked those buckles. Nails trimmed short. A web of pale, thin scars marked the brown skin of her hands, badges earned in the mastery of all those blades.

She was a fierce sparring partner who would seize the tactical advantage. A clever and competent student and a serious young woman whose beauty drew the eye, he admired everything about her. She embodied much more than he ever aspired to be.

He could not have been more proud.

He wanted to tell her the news, but a lump swelled in his throat. Revealing the news would bring his tears. He had to master his emotion first. He’d been tough on her. Couldn’t ruin that now and risk her remembering him as a sniveling fool.

Still, he’d have to say those words soon. Too soon. But not yet.

She gave him the once over in a glance. “You going empty-handed?”

On a normal night, he’d already have his sword on his belt and daggers on his hips. But he didn’t need gear tonight.

His stomach churned. Each minute brought him closer to their parting. He didn’t know what zone she’d get, but it was possible he’d never see her again. Every second felt precious. More so because she didn’t know what awaited her tonight. She didn’t have to carry the weight of their inevitable goodbye. For now, he carried the bittersweet burden for her.

You need her far more than she ever needed you.

Every healthy thing in his life stemmed from her. Not just the training routine or emphasis on nutrition. He gained stability from being her teacher. Pushing her physical abilities to ever-better levels required him to be engaged and sharp. And it kept old weaknesses at bay. With her, he achieved his best self.

Still, the need to atone for mistakes of the past haunted him.

His highest, best hope for her entailed a successful future that justified what had been taken from her. She’d had a family. He hadn’t been so lucky.

She slid daggers into the wrist sheaths and retrieved her short jacket from the peg by the door. As the coat settled on her shoulders, the costume jewels of the collar pin sparkled in the light. Andrei grimaced and the knot in his gut twisted tighter.

He’d given her the decorative lapel dagger on her sixteenth birthday. Just over three years ago. That night should have been a happy memory. Instead, an unforgettable trauma etched into his mind.

That night she’d touched him. The child he raised had declared herself a woman and offered herself to him.

He’d refused her. Morally, ethically, it was his only option. He was the only man in her life. She had a teenage crush. It was understandable. Predictable, even.

But it wasn’t easily dismissed.

Disgusted with himself at how quickly he’d grown hard under her hand, all his self-loathing coiled into his throat as he rejected her. His tone had been harsh and critical, bursting with his need to prevent her from ever tempting him again.

In hindsight, he’d been too forceful. Bullish, even. Her defeated expression and posture told him his words had landed like fists. He fled from her room praying he hadn’t done the one thing he never meant to do: break her will.

Jovienne proved too resilient to break, but the incident cost them. Their closeness evaporated. A rift opened, impossible to bridge. The pin on her lapel became a jeweled reminder of the day they destroyed their sense of family. All that remained was teacher and student.

As it should have been all along.

A new ferocity developed in her training regimen afterward. As if she’d discarded secret feelings that had held her back. Or she’d developed new emotional armor.

Either way, it would serve her well in the future. Starting tonight.

 

 

Heretic’s Penance 
The Immanence Series
Book Two
Linda Robertson Reinhardt

Genre: Dark Fantasy
Publisher: Igni House Publishing
Date of Publication: November 14, 2022
ISBN:   9781685440084   
Number of pages:   440
Word Count: 99,000
Cover Artist: Linda Robertson Reinhardt

Book Description: 

Jovienne and Andrei face a new battle —each other. Andrei has embraced an ultra-religious mindset and sees her magical power heresy. Jovienne feels so persecuted at home she leaves. She wants to build a new life, yet the Call continues. 

Whenever a demon arrives, she must slay it.

Not all of the demons seem evil, though, and she struggles with the work. Worse, Lucifer still wants her for her strange abilities. She turns to a local occult shop for help understanding her power. Too late, she learns she’s put them in serious danger.

Amazon     

Excerpt Book Two:

Jovienne pointed at him, hand trembling with anger. “Don’t blame me for what you lost. I begged you to leave. You stayed. Like you said, choices have consequences.”

“You don’t care what your evil witchcraft cost me, do you?”

Her mouth opened, but she wasn’t willing to voice her first thoughts. “I wish more than anything you would have left.” You wouldn’t have been in danger, and I wouldn’t have done what I did to save you. Her eyes burned. Unwilling to cry in front of him, she left.

Even without the boots, her heels thudded on the cracked linoleum.

“Jovienne,” Andrei called.

Ms. Davis, the neighbor downstairs, thumped her ceiling at the noise.

Jovienne didn’t care. She stomped down the hall and slammed her door. In her darkened bedroom, she stared out the front bay window.

Moving back in was stupid. I was naïve to think we could avoid this fight.

She fought both the tears and the scream building in her throat by concentrating on the lights beyond the glass and measuring her breaths.

Andrei flung open her door without knocking.

She spun.

His face contorted and he twisted and smacked the switch up. Harsh light filled the room.

He remained silent a beat longer than she expected.

“You’re an angel now. You can’t act like a spiteful child.”

His expression and tone conveyed calm, but the flush in his face and his white-knuckled hand on the doorknob said otherwise. His dominant pose declared his control of the room.

But she saw he didn’t have control of himself.

She activated the quickening to give herself an extra moment to think.

He’d always been a firm teacher. When she first started besting him in sparring matches, he resorted to taunting her to make her lose her temper. She’d seen right through the bully tactics.

He’d done the same thing in the kitchen, but this time they weren’t physically sparring.

She’d fallen for it and let him use her emotional investment against her.

Though he blocked the doorway with his body, he was not a threat. Not physically. But his beliefs were. He didn’t care if she was a slave. Worse, he felt the servitude was an honor.

She released the quickening and sank onto the bed, staring at the floor between them. Her throat remained tight from her unvoiced scream and when she spoke, it hurt. “Moving back in seemed like a great idea.” She looked up. “Last night, I thought we were on common ground.

But today you’re acting as if you expect to pick up right where we left off.”

His brows knit. “Aren’t we?”

“You’re not my teacher anymore, Andrei. And you never were my father.”

His shoulders sagged. He released the doorknob and raked fingers through his hair.

“You’re right.” The words stood for but a second before he straightened and hurried on. “If I hadn’t failed to nurture your spiritual path—”

“Stop.”

“—if I had only—”

“Stop!”

Andrei winced, then clamped his jaw.

She stood. “There are two things you need to get through your head right now. One, I cannot forget what I learned from you or what I learned from my gramma. Not even if I wanted to. And two, you don’t get to instruct me anymore. If you have an opinion about what I should think or do or how I should live my life, you will keep it to yourself.”



Martyr     
The Immanence Series
Book Three
Linda Robertson Reinhardt

Genre: Dark Fantasy
Publisher: Igni House Publishing
Date of Publication: Nov 28, 2022   
ISBN:   9781685440091
Number of pages:  635
Word Count: 148,000 
Cover Artist: Linda Robertson Reinhardt

Series Tagline: A renegade angel once changed human society forever… now a new angel will change it again.   

Book Description: 

Jovienne’s quest to understand her power and claim her freedom leads to a shocking discovery--one that will shake the foundations of modern society and sends her straight to Hell.

Bewitching Excerpt: Martyr

Jovienne found a box of Jade Oolong tea, filled the kettle, and set on the burner.

Samedi sauntered to the doorway and leaned on the far side of the casing. He blew a puff of smoke and watched her. He’d put the cane away again.

“So, Trouble, do you have any fuckin’ idea what you did back there?”

The nickname couldn’t compare with Black Diamond Woman, but it didn’t entirely displease her. “Without dirt under my feet, I had to draw on the electricity somehow. So I pulled it straight from the wires.” 

He shook his head and laughed softly. “The fuck you did.”

Offended, she leaned on the counter.

“Are you not going to ask me what you did do?”

“If you have something helpful to add, by all means, say it so I can decide if I believe you.”

He touched his chest as if wounded. “I’m trying to help you.”

“Really?” She crossed her arms. “Sitting back and judging seems more your style.”

“Like you’re doing now?”

“You’re not denying it.”

“Neither are you.”

She arched a brow.

Samedi gave her a judgmental once over. “My ‘style’ is malleable,” he said, “adjusting to fit the moment, but fuck you just the same for being a rude bitch.”

Jovienne had learned a lot from spirited chats with Andrei and Eitan and Araxiel. She sensed no threat from Samedi, but saw an amused gleam, and perhaps a playful challenge, in his eyes. It reminded her of the first time she met Araxiel.

“Maybe you should start over, because from where I stand, you’re the rude bitch. You’re acting superior, hoping I’ll change my demands. Or forget them. But I won’t.” She nodded toward the other room where Nathan sat. “What happened at the morgue just threw a lot of responsibility on my shoulders.”

“I’m relieved as fuck to hear you understand the gravity of the situation.” Samedi shifted to lean on the closer side of the doorway. “I see why you think you rerouted electricity to power your magic, but it only proves you don’t know shit about electricity.”

“Demon slaying doesn’t usually involve—” She stopped. In the last week, very little lined up with what she’d trained for. Giving him her back, she opened the cupboard and searched for a coffee cup. “Electricity wasn’t in the curriculum.”

“Of course not. An abhadhon isn’t supposed to have what you have.”

“A nephilim bloodline. Yeah. I know.” She chose a Shang-Chi mug and dropped the tea bag in.

“You shouldn’t be an abhadhon.”

“I didn’t ask for it.” She pushed the mug closer to the kettle then recrossed her arms. “Again, if you have something helpful to add, say it.”

His gaze flitted from the kettle to the mug and on to the floor as he considered. She waited. Finally, his eyes found hers. “You wouldn’t compare a nine-volt battery to a nuclear power plant because you understand enough to know that would be a fuckin’ stupid thing to say. Yet you called the power electricity. That tells me you’re ignorant.”

She turned away.

Samedi grabbed her arm and jerked her back. “That’s not an insult. It’s truth. The only remedy for ignorance is learning, so put your ego aside and let me teach you something.”

Jovienne pointedly glanced at his hand on her arm. He released her.

“Your mind made the leap straight to Frankenstein,” he said. “I get why,but forget that shit. Electricity and lightning can’t bring long-dead people back to fuckin’ life. You didn’t pull electricity from the transformers down the street. That power is crude, small, and rudimentary. It wouldn’t want to go through you.”

“Why not?”

“You aren’t negative.”

“I could introduce you to someone who’d say you’re wrong.”

“And I may well agree with them, but I’m talking about polarity, not attitude.”

The water boiled. She lifted the kettle and poured into the mug.

Samedi leaned on the doorway casing again. “Every switch has a ground wire—literally a wire that runs into the fuckin’ ground. Positive electrical charge is attracted to negative electrical charge, so any excess of positive follows the wire down and disburses into the ground.”

“Are you saying I reconnected the disbursed energy and brought it up?”

“No. I’m saying you couldn’t have used electricity because it doesn’t exist in the place you drew from.”

“If not electricity what was it?” She raised and lowered the tea bag by the string, glad for something to do with her hands. “Ley energy?”

“Fuck no.” The note of his voice dropped. “This came from a place deeper down.”

She lowered the bag slowly and let the string go. “How deep?”

“Add some sugar. It will do him good.”

“How deep?”

“Take him the tea. Then we continue.”

Jovienne let the tea steep while she searched for the sugar. Finding nothing but a few pink packets of Sweet-n-Low, she waggled them at Samedi.

“It’ll do.”

She finished preparing the tea and took it to Nathan. After passing it to him, she straightened. Samedi halted close behind her. “What?”

“Knowing without understanding has made you hard. And dangerous.” He offered his hand. “Are you ready?”

            “To what?”

“To understand.” The vortex opened behind him.

She’d demanded to talk to the Angel of Death. Looked like he was going to let her.

 


About the Author:

Linda Robertson Reinhardt is an internationally published novelist and her short stories have appeared in several anthologies. In 2022, she released The Immanence Series, a dark fantasy trilogy for which she created the covers and all the interior artwork. A life-long musician, she’s also an award-winning composer, so it’s no surprise she also wrote and produced a 72-minute original orchestral score to accompany the new books. She has even scored a few short, independent films. Her music is available on most streaming channels. She is also a graphic artist and a painter, and her artwork is available through Redbubble. If that’s not enough, she makes jewelry and hand-blends/hand-bottles fragrances that she sells on her Etsy store. A mother of four boys, Linda is married and lives in Ohio.

 







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