Gargoyle pedestal

I made a entrance piece this weekend, a gargoyle pedestal stand.
It will go at the front entrance gate, under the Cemetery sign.
Constructed out of Styrofoam and a cement form.

Corpsey

Digging out all the Halloween creations and I came across Corpsey, my first mache creature.
He is starting to fall apart, but I know I'll stuff him a body anyways.
He's been scaring ToTs with me for a long time now.

head on a stake

Saw this setup at the Halloween Train a couple years ago.
Fantastic way to give depth to your Halloween scene.
If I can source some animal skulls I might try this in my cemetery this year.

under the skin

I was looking around for Halloween inspired tattoos and came across Kurt Wiscombe.
His art combines tattoo aesthetics and Halloween themes.
I love this 3D version of one of his pieces:

scary things in coffee sacks

Just found another project I want to try inspired by Grimvisions.
Like I need yet another Halloween project to add to the ever growing list,
but I have an abundance of coffee sacks and this will be perfect to use them for!


















Check out his Etsy shop.

Corpse inspired clothing

A classy take on the skeleton suit.



















found here on ebay

Corpse Paint

Hands crusted with paper mache, and another pair of pants ruined
because I'm too anxious to get started to put on my coveralls first.
and so another night ends.
I finally had some time for my little corpses once again!
Tonight I worked on a body and gave my new corpse a paint job.
I thought I'd actually break out my proper oil paints and try to get a nice crusty skin, glossy bone look. Turned out pretty Ok.

balancing act

ahhh Fall.
Always a busy time for me, so many projects on the go, Halloween preparations and excitement building, and of course, I still have to go to work.
Luckily I work here:













Pretty funny working at a Castle. It makes me wonder if this is really just Halloween creeping into another area of my life. History and mystery and all those good things. They even say the Castle is haunted but I haven't seen anything, except for a tiny sleeping bat once. The one day I leave my camera at home.

army of darkness

It was a productive day in the monster factory.
The witch got new limbs and an outfit made of coffee sacks.
People will be frightened but also strangely craving a cappuccino.

























































Got to work on some new groundbreakers. Last years were thrown together in the last two days before Halloween so they weren't quite how I pictured them, though they still looked great at night. I think I've found a method that is working great for me so far, involving paper rolls and paper towel mache strips. You can scrunch the paper towel roll so that it looks like two small parallel bones., which works great for arms.






































I installed one of my new props over the door to the monster factory and it fits perfectly!



















So much to do!

Forest of Fear

Wow. What a morning!
I met up with a fellow haunter today who has to liquidate all his Halloween props. Sad for him, awesome for me. He ran a haunt just out of town called the Forest of Fear. It was on an acreage, and was a huge walk through haunt.
I met up with him at his storage locker where all the Halloween goodies live. It was crazy picking through all the limbs and rats and bags of spiders. A dream come true. I got an amazing deal and a carload of stuff. I even scored a homemade fog chiller, which will save me having to make one. I also got a rotisserie motor so I can attempt a Flying Crank Ghost this year! What a great day. I have the next 2 days off too, so I'll be downstairs in the monster factory, creating my army of darkness.

swank

I adore this woman's photography,
Gorgeous and grotesque all at once.

www.vonswank.com

facelift

Gave my witch a facelift today and I'm pretty happy with her so far. Originally I had tried giving her dark green skin, but it wasn't very realistic and it got lost in the dark Halloween night. This year I got her some eyes which were off of one of those uninspiring eyeball headbands. Cool thing is that they light up red, but they also flicker and dim so it doesn't look as silly as straight lit up eyes.






































Also, threw some more paint on the new tombstones.
I wish I didn't have to work this weekend so I could get more projects going.

haunt photos

Some pics from last years setup.
This year is going to be a huge improvement I hope.
Hopefully I'll take some proper photos as well.

the obsession started early.

I was making my childhood sticker book into a witches spell book awhile ago and found these inside, go figure. The love of Halloween is something that festers and grows.

old soul

Came across a photo I took a few years back.
He was in a garage haunt along the Parade of Lost Souls path.

tin smile

Got these little guys today, I couldn't resist.

Friends with torches

I got an awesome gift from a friend yesterday. A great entrance to the basement monster factory. I may leave it up as the entrance to the basement haunt this year, or maybe move it to the gates.
So wonderful to have friends who understand my madness.

my Gorgon

Medusa is almost finished. Busy weekend so I didn't have much time to work on my props.
Gave her another coat of Monster Mud, and painted her with black spray paint for those hard to reach places, and two shades of gray latex. I want to do a coat of stone spray paint, for a bit more texture and seal her with something. More research to do, but thankfully there are such amazing haunters documenting their processes. I see so much rad stuff out there, and I want to make it all!