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 I started with 1" thick foam rubber for the lower legs and lower
 arms
when I began to fluff this guy out to roughly a man's size. I would cut the foam
to just wrap around each section of pipe to meet in the back so it could be
glued to both the PVC and to itself, making a clean seam.
For the upper arms
 and
legs and shoulders I used 1 1/2" foam. It is important to note here that you will need a very good cement for this to work, as the water based DAP Weldwood Contact Cement I first used worked about as well as peanut
butter. Once I realized I hadn't gotten enough foam rubber to do a really
convincing job, I stopped by a upholstery shop and bummed a large section of
used foam from an old car seat and save myself a few bucks. The shoulders and
upper legs really took a lot of foam to get them anywhere near right (much more
than these
 photos
show here), so get plenty while
you're there.
Using
a serrated kitchen knife I sculpted
the foam to roughly
 the
shape each part of the "body"
should look and kept adding
additional foam as needed to get it
to really bulk out. Remember, under
2 shirts and denim pants it will be
impossible to detect slight
irregularities in the surface of
the foam, so you don't have to have
perfection to look good when
dressed. The best thing to use for
s culpting
foam is an electric carving kitchen
knife if you have one but a
serrated knife does an okay job if
you take your time. The photo of
the back of the shoulders here
shows some of the details that will
be added later to your jerking,
gurgling guy.
 The
idea of this prop from the very
beginning was for all the sound and
controls to be fully encased within
the dummy's chest so to operate him
a person would only need to run an
air line and 110V power line to it
and walk away. That is a tall order
with all the things this guy is
going to need, so let's get
started. Once I had the body
of my guy roughly fluffed out I
turned to the pneumatics needed to
fire our prop. The assembly here is the
tightest package
 I could fit together for the trigger
using a washing machine water valve
just for the campiness of it, pressure regulator, inlet
and outlet which was then mounted to the back side of the PVC chest upright
using conduit mounts, but plumber's tape would work just fine for this as well.
For a full how-to on how to use a washing machine water valve as shown here as
an air trigger and details on the pressure regulator, go to
AIR TRIGGER.
You will need some length of 3/16" OD plastic air line which can be picked
up at any hardware store. The fittings used here are 1/4" slip fittings.
 In
this photo you can see the first
few items going into the chest
(however, the speakers were
replaced later due to their lack of
power to sound really
realistic!). Most everything will
be mounted to this board, so make
sure you have compact power
supplies and place them carefully
so they will all fit. Next you will get a better idea of just how stuffed this turkey is going to
get.
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