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Well another year has come to an end. Oh I have sooooo much to show you!
Creations from my dark side...
This was the center piece on the dining room table for our annual party. The skulls where cast in plaster from a silicone mold made from the original and then airbrushed. Total cost to produce these beauties after the mold making was only about $2.00ea!
This is the throne I built. It started out to be an electric chair, but ended up as a throne! The top cross piece
was removed for a different back board.
This is the throne before being airbrushed. The seat and arm rests are stuffed pieces of black rubber stapled the
the wood. The back is 1/4" thick lauan plywood. Oh yeah, meet Fat Frank!
It's hard to tell but the main body of the throne in sprayed a dark royal red. Then aged by misting it with black.
The back is solid black. Fat Frank is a chicken wire body wrapped in burlap strips. The entire body is coated with
joint compound that has black latex paint mixed in. I like to call it "Monster Mud." The mixture is smeared
and worked into the burlap using just your hands. This holds everything together as it dries and becomes stiff
over a few days . The skull is one of those cheap plastic ones with a little compound for texture. I airbrushed
the entire body to look like dusty aged clothing then webbed him over with my TBD web shooter. This prop was only
seen by people at our party and will be used for TOTing in '99.
This is our party cooler but will be used for other things in the future. It is constructed out of 2" thick
foam board with a colonial base board molding around the bottom. The cracks are melted into the foam with an electric
soldering gun. Then the entire crypt is coated in epoxy resin for added strength. The plywood was added to support
the hinges.
This is after it was heavily sprayed with gray latex primer then airbrushed giving it a stone look. I get the same
look that you would get using stone spray paint at hardly any cost! I lined the inside with a white sheet and put
a 4' blacklight up against the front wall. We filled 5 plastic containers with ice and beverages.
This is an 8'x2' wall hanging I made for the party. It is made from a sheet of 2" thick foam board covered
with wrinkled burlap. I then cut up one of those crappy skeletons. I scattered the bones over the board and used
several cans of spray foam insulation for a cool filler. After some "Monster Mud", primer, and airbrushing,
I poured epoxy resin into the cavities for a cool wet look. If you look closely you can see some of the skeleton.
This idea I got from a prop at the Haunted Chamber (a Castle Blood prop). He consists of a chicken wire body covered
in burlap, MM, and then airbrushed. I used a mask from a '97 prop and spray foam for the vein looking texture inside
the coffin. The coffin is made from 1x6 pine with a lauan back.
This one looks so real most people would not pass it. Basically the same construction, wood frame and base, covered
with chicken wire,burlap, MM, and painted. Cheap but very effective. The mask cost more than the whole thing!
Ok, this one finally shows the basic chicken wire skeleton I make for most of the props. This prop is a ceiling
crawler! The thin plywood base is used to screw him to the ceiling. His hands are spray foam over coat hanger wire
frames. I plan to make a few more of these guys but in different positions. (half on wall with hands on ceiling,
etc.)
This is another prop done for the party but will be used for the haunt in the future. It's a plywood base covered
with burlap and MM. The hands are foam over wire, both the hands and the mask where airbrushed.
This guy was used in a door way during our party heavily covered in webs. The door way had a boarded up insert
(3rd picture) and was lit from underneath. On Halloween night we used him as a cocoon victim in the alien setup.
It's a chicken wire body covered in burlap and monster mud.
Here is what we did to create a plunge in our neighborhood's housing resale values! I tore apart 16 wood pallets
that I got free from a local home improvement center. I air stapled each board over two 2x2's. Each panel lifts
in and out very easy and can be stored outside without worrying about damage. The older they become the better
they look!
This year our area decided to have TOTing from 4-6! What we decided to do was enclose the porch completely, so that no one could see in. While passing out candy (4-6pm) we played a cool soundtrack, used the fogger, and pasted out flyer to the older kids and parents. The flyers said "Trick or Treating here from 4-6pm Come back for a Scare from 6-8pm!". It worked very well! We had about 50-60 people come back and stayed open for visitors till about 9:30!
