Hi! I saw your post about the sculpt, which is how I found this forum. I think you also have the matching vinyl head to the one I have on my creature as I remember the guy I bought it from selling two of them at the time.
I've been wanting a full-size Creature since the 1960s, but the only ones I could find were the fiberglass ones that run $5,000 to $10,000, and if I'm going to buy something for that much I better be able to drive it home or live in it.
Taking away the money I wasted on bad ideas, I would say I put about $700 into the project, which isn't bad given the results.
My problem was always with the body. I kept looking for ways to sculpt all the patterns and scales at a body level, and kept running into roadblocks. I was thinking of using some sort of clay and having my sister-in-law do the sculpting, but we were worried the clay might breakaway once it dried. I posted a question about this to the guys on Halloween.com, and a guy there informed me of something I had never noticed before, that being the body suit isn't one solid piece, but rather just multiple pieces of foam layered atop one another, each having roughly the same shape. I immediately looked at some pictures, and he was right. I had been too focused on making a whole body, when all I really needed to do is come up with one general shape and keep repeating it over and over again as I moved up the body, making allowances for additional width as I went up.
Without that key bit of information, I would have never been able to make this figure; but with it I was able to make it in about two weeks of working in my spare time. Even better, I was able to make it the same way the original was made instead of building what amounted to a huge model kit.
The only other major challenge was the skin, which I was looking at making a huge skin mold with the scales, then making swaths and swaths of skin using self-vulcanizing rubber, but I couldn't get any good advice on which rubber to use and didn't want to waste money experimenting. That was when I thought about asking my sister, who's a polymer scientist who used to work on auto interiors, what to use and when I thought of her I remembered seeing some neat vinyl alligator skin in a car at a car show and wondered if that might work for the outer skin of the Creature. I found out the alligator scales weren't the right size/shape, but the boa skin was perfect.
I got real lucky when I found the set of original feet for sale as I was going to use the costume feet like I did the gloves, and I don't know how well they would have turned out.
I think if you really want a Creature, by all means you should make one. He's a lot easier than you think. I'll be glad to give you any info you might need.
