Given my history over the last few years with making giant effigies for Halloween, I was recently contacted to join the effort to institute a new Halloween parade in one of the southern neighborhoods of Seattle. (Specific details will be in a later post)

Officially I’ll be running a couple of workshops on how to construct giant cardboard heads, similar to what I made last year, but to make them in a way that lends itself to easily strolling down the street with it. It also means trying to build a full size parade float, albeit a human powered one.

I could just go and buy a cheap backpack frame. But where’s the fun in that? I’ve come into possession of a couple hundred pounds of bamboo, so…

Seen above is a first quick and dirty attempt to build a back frame with the materials I have sitting around.

First things I came to realize after the first prototype was the importance of the width being smaller than the space between your elbow as you reach back.

Second thing, the lower horizontal band should hit just above the hips. Eventually it will be connected to something like a padded weight belt, which is actually what is going to be holding most of the weight.

The shoulder straps will have two adjustment points. One to tighten them to your shoulder, the other to set the core-and-aft position of the frame itself.

The last part is a vertical pole that will extend up into and support the head itself. There will be a shoulder structure that will float above the wearer’s head, and support the arm structures, as well as a suit of clothes that the puppeteer will be hiding within.

Also considering some larger structures, like a dragon, a jack-o’-lantern type thing and a couple of other structures I’m considering. Whether I do all of that may be limited by my ability to convince people to wear them for the parade…

Better make it comfortable…