I love severed heads. Not real ones, of course. I love the fake kind, and I experience quite the thrill when I finally get to check out the selection at Spirit Halloween and Halloween Express each year. I usually buy one myself, and then my mother-in-law gets me one for Christmas. It’s a tradition that I’m pretty fond of and one that makes my MIL one of the best in history. Does your mother-in-law get you severed heads for Christmas? I didn’t think so.
Anyway, I love getting a “commercial” creepy head, but there’s a certain charm in the homemade stuff. A few years ago, we moved from an apartment to our house, and with the added space came a new-found love of making props. So even though I already had a pretty decent head collection at that time, I thought I’d try my hand at making one myself.
This is how I made my very first DIY severed head Halloween prop.
Materials
- Foam Head (any size you prefer)
- Craft Knife and/or Metal Carving Tools
- Prop Teeth
- Hot Glue Sticks & Glue Gun
- Assorted Paints (blood-colored + any other colors you need to create your vision)
- Plastic Eyes (optional)
- Twine/Thick String (optional for hanging heads)
- Ice Pick/Long Screw Driver/Thick-Gauge Wire (optional for hanging heads)
Step 1
I started by purchasing a foam head from Hobby Lobby that using one of their 40% off coupons. (Aside from being a horror fan, I’m also a big proponent of getting the best deal, so I try to buy as many of my supplies on sale or clearance as possible.)
Hobby Lobby has a few varieties of heads to choose from – female, male, and faceless – so you can choose whichever fits your project best. Although the faceless ones are creepy on their own, I wanted mine to be pretty big, so I went with a male head.
Step 2
As you can see from the pic above, my next step was to draw out the features I wanted for my severed head. I wanted it to be gross, and keeping both eyes just wasn’t an option.
Step 3
I used a craft knife and some metal sculpting tools to pick and carve out where I drew my guidelines: one of the eyes, part of the scalp, and the base of the head to make it look actually severed. I recommend roughing up the base of the head for any head you create. We want realism wherever possible, people, and a clean-cut head just won’t – well – cut it. (I’m sorry. I hate myself).
Step 4
To give him a more realistic-looking mouth, I also carved out some of the area around the side of the mouth and jaw and used some fake zombie teeth that I bought at Spirit Halloween. The teeth were rubber and very easy to cut. They were also ridged on the back to make them easy to wear, so I sliced off the back to make them lay flat as possible to fit the head. I then used a hot glue gun to secure them in place. You can see in the pic below that my guy was already looking pretty handsome at this stage.
Optional Step (not pictured)
If you want to add eyes to your severed head instead of painting them on, there are many options for plastic fake eyes to find in your local Halloween stores. I recommend finding the hollow plastic versions that are easier to cut for this project.
Cut the eye in half with a craft knife and hold to your foam head in the position you want it. Trace the outline of the eye, and use your craft knife to cut straight into your foam in the approximate depth of your eye. Test the depth of your cuts with the eye before adhering to the head. When you’re satisfied, add glue to the inside of the eye, an then stick the eye edges down into your cut foam.
Tip: You could also use yarn, twine, wire, or something similar to stick to your head and eye if you want to go for that “just-popped-out-eye” look.
Step 5
After the glue dried, it was time to make it PRETTY!!! Pretty to me, at least. I already had a lot of paint on hand so I mixed some random colors together to get a sickly, partially-decomposed skin color. Like I said – pretty. I also mixed some red, black, and brown to get a realistic bloody color. I slapped my paint mixtures on until I got the look I wanted and – VOILA! – severed head!
You have a lot of options at this stage. It really depends on the look you’re going for. Be creative!
Isn’t he beautiful?
My zombie head has served me quite well these past few Halloweens. Another benefit from these foam heads is that they already have a hole in the base, perfect for sticking them on pvc pipe or dowel rods to make a full-body prop, a head-on-a-stake, or something else equally cool. I turned my severed head into full-body prop the first year. (See the tutorial here.) You can see by the sweet flannel shirt in the pic above that he was quite stylish.
If you want a great creepy project, I recommend you try making yourself a severed head of your own. It’s a cheap and easy way to up the scare factor in your home for Halloween. Plus you get the sense of accomplishment you feel when you make something with your own hands.
If Halloween isn’t your thing, it could be especially therapeutic if you make one to look like an enemy. No judgment. We’ve all been there.
You do you, man.
