Universal Monsters Frankenstein - Life Size Gemmy Animatronic WIP

[agliarept]

Recently got a life size Gemmy/Spirit Frankenstein's Monster animatronic and began the process of upgrading/repairing and generally improving his appearance.

He's modeled after Karloff's Frankenstein, and although the likeness is somewhat there, they def couldn't get the actor's likeness licensed. Regardless, i'll be airbrushing his face to better give off that classic Frankenstein appearance as best as I can.

His arms raise up and down, head turns, eyes light up and a few different lines from the movie along with his groans are played when he's activated. I used a Frankenstein themed doorbell as a housing for better electronics and to act as a remote switch for kids to bring him to life on halloween.

Here's my general progress so far.

As received:

he stands just about 7 feet:

New tailored suit and temporary black shirt:

Had to make him custom tearaway pants lol:

The remote. Casted clear acrylic capacitors/insulators? with an led circuit to sync with the doorbell eye animatronic/sound in parallel to the mono switch plugged intro Frank:

He needed a haircut. Adjust the wig, gave him bangs, then trimmed them and slightly styled them with gel (needs a bit further refinement).

before the gel and styling:

Finished for now:

Happy with him so far:

Going to start the following some time next week:

1. Paint up the face and hands
2. Weathering the clothes and boots
3. Fix some of the animatronics on his left arm
4. Further tailor the suit fit

Hope you guys find this somewhat entertaining.

 

[agliarept]

Updated his face with some old school makeup application. Channelling my inner Jack Pierce to bring him to life a bit more.


Beforehand

First pass

New undershirt

2nd pass underneath angle

Done for now, i'll weather and continue on him next week.

 

[13doctorwho]

This is awesome! Halloween is the biggest day of the year for me... I build stuff for the yard off and on all year. You really brought that to life. Great work.

 

[agliarept]

Thanks a lot!

Eventually i'll disassemble him and fix the stripped gears on his left arm.

 

[Mottrex]

Have you thought about getting one of those karloff death masks from FleaBay..
You could cut ot the old face and have Old Willy starring right back at you..

 

[Cbstudios]

This is gonna look rad as hell. Even just the haircut makes a huge difference!

 

[Gladney]

Recently got a life size Gemmy/Spirit Frankenstein's Monster animatronic and began the process of upgrading/repairing and generally improving his appearance.

He's modeled after Karloff's Frankenstein, and although the likeness is somewhat there, they def couldn't get the actor's likeness licensed. Regardless, i'll be airbrushing his face to better give off that classic Frankenstein appearance as best as I can.

His arms raise up and down, head turns, eyes light up and a few different lines from the movie along with his groans are played when he's activated. I used a Frankenstein themed doorbell as a housing for better electronics and to act as a remote switch for kids to bring him to life on halloween.

Here's my general progress so far.

As received:
View attachment 1615774

he stands just about 7 feet:

View attachment 1615786
New tailored suit and temporary black shirt:

View attachment 1615775

Had to make him custom tearaway pants lol:

View attachment 1615776

The remote. Casted clear acrylic capacitors/insulators? with an led circuit to sync with the doorbell eye animatronic/sound in parallel to the mono switch plugged intro Frank:

View attachment 1615777

He needed a haircut. Adjust the wig, gave him bangs, then trimmed them and slightly styled them with gel (needs a bit further refinement).

View attachment 1615779

before the gel and styling:

View attachment 1615780

Finished for now:
View attachment 1615781

Happy with him so far:

View attachment 1615793



Going to start the following some time next week:

1. Paint up the face and hands
2. Weathering the clothes and boots
3. Fix some of the animatronics on his left arm
4. Further tailor the suit fit

Hope you guys find this somewhat entertaining.

He looks fantastic !! Great job !

 

[frosty]

brilliant work! really looks good

 

[publiusr]

Quite the improvement

 

[Franks busted]

Thanks a lot!

Eventually i'll disassemble him and fix the stripped gears on his left arm.

My guys left arm the bed too. Is it an easy fix?

 

[agliarept]

From what I've researched it's straight forward gear replacement & lube job. Requires disassembly of the torso and the arm housing to really get in there and replaced the strip gears.

 

[publiusr]

Something that might help animatronics truly come to life:

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Maybe it can make models for you

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www.newswise.com

 

[go2ldook]

From what I've researched it's straight forward gear replacement & lube job. Requires disassembly of the torso and the arm housing to really get in there and replaced the strip gears.

I have one of these and need to look at repairing him. Any update on your repairs? Advice and pics or video would be appreciated!

 

[agliarept]

HI, I haven't taken him apart yet. But it's something I'm aiming to do early next year.

From my research the most common problem with the arms are the stripped plastic gears used in the upper shoulder that wear out/need replacement.

 

[go2ldook]

So, I took mine apart yesterday to look at this. The gears do not look horribly stripped that I can tell. The arms on mine work but the right arm doesn't go up all the way, and seems to stop because of resistance. With the jacket off he does fine, but wearing the jacket the right arm comes up about 4 in shorter than the left arm. We also no longer have sound but we have so much sound from other animatronics it's not a big deal. I could not identify a cause for the sound being out. You can't really easily troubleshoot the gears with the gearbox open, as they don't hold together properly with the case open. I did note that the gears do not fully overlap in a couple of places, but not sure if that is part of the issue. I tried putting a washer under one of the gears so they would overlap a little better, but that actually stopped it from working at all so that was not a solution. I did note that if I try to stop the rotation of the largest gear that attaches to the arm with a screwdriver, I can't really get the rotation to stop. The problem only occurs when it's carrying the load of the arm plus some additional weight from the clothing. I even tried taking all of the padding out from around the arm to see if that would help, but on that side it just will not raise the arm all the way with any added weight on it.

I suppose I could try measuring the voltage delivered to that motor compared to the one on the left side to see if there's a difference there. I read somewhere where there can be a voltage drop, possibly from a bad capacitor but I'm not sure how well I can troubleshoot that issue. Grossly all the capacitors look fine with no bulging capacitors that I could see. If anyone else has any great ideas on further troubleshooting options I'd appreciate it, but I'm probably just going to live with what I've got.

 

[go2ldook]

Potential troubleshooting tip: generally to get the gearbox off to troubleshoot it, you need to get the plastic body cavity off, which means removing the screws that attach it to the shoulder/gear assembly, and also the screws that attach the shoulder assembly to the spring loaded rods that run the length of the body/ legs. Once the gearbox and shoulder assembly are out you can then access the screws that attach the gearbox to the shoulder assembly. A workaround to allow you to remove the gearbox without all of that is to drill a couple of holes in the black plastic body cavity right above the shoulder where the screws secure the gearbox to the shoulder assembly. You can then pass a screwdriver in to unscrew the two screws that attach the gear assembly to the shoulder assembly, and pull the gearbox out to work on it. Can be a little bit of a trick to get those screws back in but it is doable. Just be careful not to let the drill hit any wires or foam on the way through the plastic shell. I caught some foam and it ripped a wire but I was able to solder it back in place. I initially took the whole thing apart but when I still had problems with the arm I wanted to open the gearbox again, so this allowed me to not have to disassemble the whole thing again.