Foam board keytar prop

Published by Manning on October 30th, 2024

I made this simple 1980s keytar prop for my Frankenstein keytar player statue for our monster new wave band.

I made this in a very similar way to how I made my foam guitar prop. Another easy and fun one! It’s really just mostly foam board with a little hot glue and a lot of tape.

I’m putting this disclaimer on all my Halloween 2024 (Monster Prom) projects: I was in such a panic this year I did not take many progress photos of anything! And the pics I did take are at really random stages. So I’ll dump all my pics for each project near the top, and just write up all my steps below those.

I first drew and cut out a keytar shape from foam board. I traced the head and neck to make a second foam board copy of those and glued them in place behind the main shape. I covered the edges of the head and neck with masking tape.

I then cut out long narrow strips of foam board to be the outer edges of the guitar body. I taped these in place all around the body. There’s no back surface to the keytar body; it’s just open on the back.

I made the white keys from a piece of poster board. I just drew the lines between the keys with a Sharpie. I glued this in place, and then I made the black keys out of a piece of thick black foam that I got at the craft store. I hot-glued these in place right onto the white keys.

The little buttons and stuff are just craft foam shapes, cut out and glued on.

Of course, if this were meant to be a more permanent decoration, I would’ve covered the body and neck in paper maché before painting and assembling everything. For this short-lived Halloween thing there was no need.

Interested in commissioning a piece from me? Please see my page about custom paper maché pieces. Please email me; don't put your request in a comment below.

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