Make Your Own Studio Voodoo Head

Now these are very cool. No, they are not Voodoo dolls, but they are green Voodoo art and crafted by my favorite contemporary composer Koz Mraz of Studio Voodoo. Do you recognize the Studio Voodoo doll in the background? :)

The following is from the tutorial provided at Make Your Own Alien Studio Voodoo Head on Squidoo. You should go there to see the step by step photos that go with the tutorial.

Studio Voodoo Alien Heads
I created these 20 years ago and now they've become Green. Made from the recycled materials of 1 Gallon Milk Containers and metal coat hangers. Any plastic container with a handle works, Clorox bottles, Quart milk containers but the milk ones are translucent and backlight up nicely.

Find a large workspace, lay down some newspaper for the mess and gather the necessary materials.

1.Your clean gallon milk containers, the labels peel off easily
2. A variety of colored tissue paper, purchased anywhere inexpensively
3. A 2-3 inch paintbrush
4. Permanent marker
5. Box Cutter, razor knife for cutting the milk bottles (disclaimer: recommended for adults over the age of 18 Studio Voodoo clains no liability for any injury incurred while making Kozmos Alien Voodoo heads)
6. Elmer's Glue
7. Large Bowl
8. Metal coat hangers and pliers for bending them

First I turn the container upside down and on each side of the handle I draw the eye shapes with the marker then using the box cutter. Cut out the eye shapes and a large section behind the front for access for lighting effects later.

Next, I take a medium container of Elmer's glue and pour it into a bowl and add about a cup of warm water and mix thoroughly; basically we are making paper machete. At this point, I use the paintbrush and coat the front of the milk jug, lay over a sheet of tissue paper and paint over that again with the water/glue mixture. I repeat this with four to six sheets depending on the color I am looking for. Sometimes I even mix colors for effect. This gets pretty messy. When I am done, the excess tissue paper easily peels away from the plastic container and around the eye cutouts. Set it aside and repeat the process with a different colored tissue paper. They will be dry the next day. Making the coat hanger stands is tricky but the curved part of the coat hanger almost fits perfectly around the bottleneck so with some experimenting the stands can be easily made. I have detailed photos at my site. This could be a fun school project. If you pre cut all the bottles, students could make the heads and then even paint them to look like an African mask. I do this every Christmas and hang them on the Christmas tree. We celebrate Quanza here at the VoodooMansion.

Now, go check out more details and photos at Make Your Own Alien Studio Voodoo Head. Have fun!