High up on the list of things I never knew I wanted was a massive, house-sized Lego skeleton adorning my front yard for Halloween. Alan Perkins, a man (and living Halloween legend) from Olmsted Falls, Ohio, is living that dream after engineering exactly such a skeleton. Perkins’ giant Lego skeleton measures over 13-feet tall. And yes, the arms articulate.
This isn’t actually the first time Perkins has gone viral for his Halloween displays. When it comes to Halloween decor, he has a history of doing too much.
As the story goes, Perkins wanted to craft a Lego skeleton, which is available in any one of a number of Halloween-themed Lego sets, except he wanted it really big, like, 100 times bigger than what you’d get in a Lego kit. This was no easy task for Perkins, who made several custom tools for the project.
The full tutorial on how to build your own is available at the popular DIY website Instructables, written by Perkins. The process essentially involves custom cutting a bunch of foam shapes, fixing them together with foam spray, attaching all the various parts with wire and PVC, and then finishing the whole thing with sytroplast and a paint job. All told, the cost was around $1,700, although Perkins admits recreating it from scratch would be closer to $2,500.
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Perkins is known around the Cleveland area for his lavish Halloween setups. The LEGO skeleton is his latest masterpiece, but a Facebook video of the rest of his yard shows a Halloween wonderland.
Not only did Perkins wind up with arguably the coolest Halloween decoration of all time, but it also got the attention of Lego, which posted his skeleton on Instagram. It has since gone viral, accumulating more than 185,000 likes with many people asking where or how they can obtain one.
In addition, Perkins has partnered with Skeletons of St. Jude, a charity event to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, along with over 650 other houses to collect donations. Visit Skeletons of St. Jude and donate if you wish.
Recreating such a gem of a decoration is no easy task, but you can buy some pretty neat stuff if you don’t go the DIY route. Home Depot released its Halloween lineup, which includes its cult-favorite 12-foot skeleton Skelly. It’s not a Lego skeleton, but it’s still pretty cool. Amazon’s Halloween shop is also open for business, which includes a couple of Halloween Lego sets and Nightmare Before Christmas-themed Echo Dot devices.
