Well after a couple months hiatus, I am back and ready to build some props for 2010. Our financial burdens are almost under control and I have been away from Halloween studying to start a business. Now I am ready to turn my attention back to Halloween. I have a few ideas for props this year that I will be sharing with you all as I build them. One is a life-sized zombie puppet, and something that resembles a zombiette from scare factory. I thought of a way to make realistic hands that I will be trying out shortly. I scored a free bathroom sink from the side of the road that i will be turning into a Haunted Vanity prop I once saw on FrightCatalog. I built a fireplace back in November that I will post pics of later on. Also in the works are a large candlabra made from free wood, PVC, and faux flickering candles, a rocking granny (or corpse) prop, an entire bedroom scene, and finishing up the Vortex that we began to make over a year ago.

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Another Halloween has come and past. We set up another mini-haunt in our extremely small yard, but overall I conder it to be successful. There were only 3 of us this year and we each had 2 scares. We had about 10 small groups, one group went through 3 times (forcing us to find different hiding spots lol). Basically all we had was 5 rooms with minimal props (since some of my yard props were stolen this year) with a few "rows" of corm leading into it, and a spider cave as they came out. I actually made a teenage boy jump! Well, I have to finish tearing down...I never had a spare minute to takes pics unfortunately. I hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween...on to work on next year's haunt

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I have mainly been on the side of less gore is better, but until I made the Impaled prop this year, I'm starting to think that maybe gore isn't so bad. I probably wouldn't go overboard with gore, but gore seems to attract attention (lol) and today I had someone walking by who stopped and looked real closely at it. He was very impressed and said he would definately bring his nephew to my house for trick-or-treating. Never before have I had people walk over and take pics of my props and although I have had a few people stop or slow down the past years, this year there have been a lot more! I am in the process of building a prop I call Spiked (which was inspired by a static prop I saw online by the same name) and when it is done, it will sit next to Impaled. I will judge by the reactions my display gets when both props are out there, but so far the gorey prop has gotten the most favorable reactions...and one not-so-favorable one too

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The Impaled prop is just about done. It needs a little more paint on the base but here it is:

A funny thing: about 10 minutes ago I had a police officer at my door. He said someone stopped by the station and told them the pro looked too realistic and something about blood and guts. The complainer wanted it taken down! But the police officer said he could not make me take it down, complimented me on the prop, and went about his business with a smile on his face. I'm flattered!

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Here are some updated pics of the Impaled Victim.

Here he is with some clothes on:



Here he is nearly complete:




The arms are tan-colored packing tape doubles. I painted them sparingly with black and red and allowed the tan tape color to show through.

All that remains is to attach his head. Although I think I may just add a neck stump and great stuff foam and the skull can be in the guts at the base. This turned out entirely different than I had intended. I wanted a more skeletal corpse that looks like it had been hanging there for a long time, but this project kind of took on a life of its own.

P.S. For anyone interested...Rowan,my little girl who has the medical problems, is in the last pic holding her sippy cup. She has come a long way, but now must have her tonsils removed in Boston

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Ok...I had a chance to work on the Impaled Victim a little more. Here are some updates:

Here he is with tape-double arms and legs attached:



I used packing tape because it is waterproof. Not sure if dut tape is or not. I also added supports for the base to make it sturdier. They were more pieces or ripped pallt plank.

I didn't like the look of the base so after 2 cans of spray foam I had this...



I also added a litte foam to the enrty and exit point of the stake:



I put an old pair of jeans on him:



I am still working on the head which will be a paper mache skull with (hopefully) bits of flesh still attached. I also need to paint the great stuff. Oh yeah and I got a little lazy and used great stuff instead of his left foot. I will update and add more pics when I get it done.

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This is a WIP, but I thought I'd start to show it off. I can be a real doofus sometimes...although our digital camera crapped out, I have one on my cell phone. DUH! Anyway, I took several pallet planks and ripped them down to about 1"X1" and cut them (using my body as reference) to the lengths of forearms, upper arms, shoulders, thighs, etc. The spine was hand drawn on a pallet plank and cut out with my jigsaw. Everything is held together with screws.



I then took some newspaper and packing tape and wrapped it around the frame for some padding.



The torso was made by stuffing newspaper into grocery bags and taping onto the frame. I tried to shape them with tape. The next step is to attach some tape-double limbs over the padding and stuff tightly with newspaper. I will likely use a tape-double torso as well, but it is pretty hard to tape yourself up lol. More pics will come as I finish the project.

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Since I was thinking of doing another small free yard haunt this year with just myself and one other person, I was wondering what would be a good theme. I have decided that it would be a 4-room vampire crpyt. The facade will be a mausoleum with 2 Sentinels (like the ones Stolloween makes) guarding it. I really one have the first room designed and it will of course have some coffins and a vampire surprise. The other 3 rooms are in the works...not much for idea as of yet, but we have built dummy frames from pallet wood. We just ripped the planks on a table saw to get something that resembles 1x1's. I wanted to use the Vortex we started, but everyone (except me) lost interest and it was never finished. As for the yard haunt at my freind's house, he had a death in the family and some other issues and hasn't had time to build.

I will try my best to document our progress, but my digital camera crapped out so there won't be many pics unless I can use my step-dad's camera. Right now we have built 3 7-foot spikes to use for impaled victims in the cemetery. We have 4 frames for groundbreakers made. Walls are done, but need painting. The Sentinels are started...got the wings done and one torso done...need to add fabric and paint. I'm hoping we get 4 rooms done by Halloween since it wil be open only 1 night.

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Digging around tonight (looking for some vampire fangs I stored away) I rediscovered a pacakge of playdough that I had bought awhile back at Walmart for $1-$2. I remember buying it to experiment with making molds. I opened 1 can of it (blue, but color doesn't matter for this) and a package of funny teeth, also from Walmart. I kneaded the playdough and then rolled it in a cylinder and flattened one side of it. I pressed the funny teeth into the playdough and carefully removed it. I grabbed my trusty hot glue gun and immediately filled the impression. After a few minutes I peeled open the playdough mold and removed the teeth. They are exact duplicates! All they need is some paint and I can glue them into my paper amche skulls. I plan on doing this with my vampire fangs (which are still tucked away somewhere).

As a second experiment, I re-rolled the playdough and pressed the back of my index finger into it. After filling with hot glue and waiting a few minutes, I was able to pull the finer cast free of the playdough and saw another great duplicate. The only problem is that the playdough sticks to the hot glue a little and it can be a pain to remove. It comes off with some rubbing of the thumb lol. Right now I am waiting for the little pieces of playdough to dry and they should fall right off. You'll see what I mean by this if you try it out. This process is really easy and has fantastic results

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