/diy/ - Do It Yourself

I'm not sure if this should be on /diy/ or /ck/, but I need help making some fake bones; enough to produce a rough approximation of a human skeleton.

Back story: my brother and I do Sunday night dinner together most weeks as a way to keep up with each other. We alternate turns cooking each week. Over a couple of years, we've both developed some decent cooking and presentation skilz, and have tried to out do each other several times. Easter is going to be my next turn.

Suffice it to say, neither of us are religious people. Even still, I'm planning a religious themed easter dinner. Basically, I want to build a human corpse to represent jesus, and then the different courses would be served from the corpse directly. For example, I want to cut the head open with a dremel (largely for show, not much real cutting) and remove the 'brain' to serve as a pate and crackers course. I want to slice in to the abdomen (and a plastic bag concealed within) and scoop out the contents to serve as a Ramen with mixed vegetable course. Etc...

Anyway, I have this recipe for 'fauxtex' which will make plenty of fake skin to cover the corpse with. I really just need an easy and cheap way to make the skeleton. I don't even need a whole skeleton; I'm thinking just a long spine section, the rib cage, and the pelvis. The serving area is only so big. I already have a plastic skull that I can make the head out of.

I guess my real question is how can I make the rib cage and pelvis? It has to be accuratly shaped enough so that when you drape the fake skin over it, the final appearence is real enough. Can I make some plaster of Paris casts for the ribs? Can I use animal bones avaliable at the butcher? Can I do a little of both and fuse them together somehow? I looked up plastic skeletons that I could disassemble, but the cheapest one that looked like it would do the job was $100 and out of stock. I tried party city, but they don't have anything Halloween at this time of year.