Counting the Days…

Ok, no end of Summer Blow Out Bash for us this Labor Day weekend. It’s time to bust out some props and try to make up for the lack of production the last few months. Yikes! Seriously behind schedule this year.

So, the project for this weekend are new columns with an integrated count down sign. I have the frames for the two 8ft tall columns built, but only have one a little over half way skinned with foam and carved. Dixie has carved out tons of numbers and hard coated them with

vinyl concrete patch mixed with wood glue.

 

The concrete patch is my new love this year!

Dixie will be working on the countdown sign, plus a Nickols Manor sign, to go on the columns. The plan is to velcro the numbers to the sign so we can change them out each day.

 

The numbers and letters of the sign will be base coated in white latex paint and then detailed with Wildfire Luminescent paint.

 

 

I couldn’t wait to see what this all looked like under a blacklight, so I grabbed a few numbers, my half finished column, and my camera. This is not what the final product will look like, but it shows you what we are going for…plus the Wildfire paint is cool as hell!

 

 

Ok, that’s it for now. Gotta get back in the garage and get to work. Wish us luck!

 

Oh, and happy Labor Day for those of you in the USA! Throw a burger on the grill for me and save a beer!

Costume Gathering

Well, its August, and I am so behind on gathering all the pieces for my costume.  It’s been 3 years that I have worn the same one, and I am so looking forward to something new.  Based on my last costume, there are a few things that I KNOW I want…

1.  Working with the light.  We use blue and red lights.  Which made for an invisible dress, being that it was black and emerald green.  This year I want lighter colors, which will absorb the light better, without making me look too cheery.  (In most of the pictures last year, you couldn’t make out anything except my clown white makeup, and my white wig, it was just a little TOO weird, lol)

2.  Proper hemming.  I was not born with the amazing ability to sew, hem, or even thread a needle.  I actually duct taped about 6 inches of my dress hem, so that I could walk in the yard without tripping.   Yes, duct tape.

3.  I like the full skirts of period dresses… Civil War, Early Victorian, Rococo without the added hips (which I seriously don’t need extra padding?!?!) so I am sticking with the old ghost of the Manor gig.

Love the stripes, hate the extra hip, I don’t need extra hips ;)

Good combination of colors, lovely waist cincher, this is a heavy contender

Love this one, the stern neckline and sleeves are good for warmth… just wish it weren’t so black…

 

4.  I am stuck on all thing Burton, and love the quirky-ness of black and white vertical stripes.  I want something kind of half serious, half quirky.

Love this quirky fabric – from the (who’d a thunk it) Dr. Seuss line (haha!).  Wish I could work this in somehow…

So with a list like that, I have not found what I want looking at Etsy, Ebay, or any of the other sites I have found.  I believe that I’m going to contact a seamstress or two, and see if there is any way I can afford some help of someone that knows OH SO MUCH more than I do about this stuff.

I guess my idea of a quirky, old, crazy lady that died in a house and was buried in what appeared to be half circus costume is not such a common item!  (I make myself laugh on this one)

Love these too!

Now, all I need to find is a wacky hat………..

Happy building everyone!

Halloween Animatronic

The only thing I love as much as Halloween, are robots. After stumbling across the video above, I am now in Nerdvana! Oh man...the bank account is going to be very dry this year. Now...how to hide it from Dixie?

Hmmm...maybe NOT posting it on the blog would have been a good first start. There's that damn hindsight again. I swear I have 20/10 vision looking backwards!

Sword of Blight ( or me just playing around with rust…again)

After my last post about creating a rust look, I got some really good tips. So, I needed to test them out again.

I didn’t have anything handy that I wanted to look rusted, so I needed to make something. Hmm….we have a graveyard, and everything is old, undead, moldy, and decaying but not dangerous. I need to punch up the danger factor in the yard, so it’s time to arm the yard!

Months ago I took a scrap piece of wood and sanded it down to look like a sword blade. I was just playing around to see what I could do with the piece. I never planned it out or did anything else with the blade. It’s actually a little too short to look like a real sword. I also never threw it away. It’s been floating around the garage since last summer.

Well, I had some new rust techniques I needed to test out, and I didn’t want to use another boring piece of PVC pipe. So, I had a purpose for the wee little hobbit blade now.

I needed a hilt and crosspiece for the blade, so I took a piece of 1” PVC pipe and cut a slit down the middle of the pipe using a hacksaw. Be CAREFULL and go slow if you decide to do this like I did. (NOT advised). What I should have done is place the pipe in a bench vise and cut the piece. What I ACTUALLY did was hold the piece with one hand while cutting with the other. Not smart or safe. Outside I was all cool and businesslike (cause you know, that’s what’s really important, looking cool), inside I was saying, “NOT SMART! NOT SMART!” over and over. (See?!? That’s not cool on the outside.) (Yes…men are stupid, but you love us anyway!)

I think I just demonstrated the classic instance of a dumbass. I knew what I did was wrong, but I did it anyway.

 

Next I pried the two slit pieces of PVC apart and slid the wooden blade into the slit. Then I took the miraculous wonderment of all haunters, crafters, DIYers, and NASCAR called Gorilla Tape, and locked the blade to the pipe.

Now I needed a crosspiece. I took a small piece of blue foam insulation and cut it down to size. Cut a whole in the center of the foam, slid the foam down the wooden blade, and promptly broke it in half trying to force it over the tape.

SOoooo, I take ANOTHER piece of foam (Pink this time) and make a bigger piece with a bigger hole. This was hot glued to the PVC pipe and blade. I also used the hot glue to fill in the gap between the blade and the crosspiece’s hole. Things are looking better. Except, the crosspiece is shaped wrong and pink. I took a wood rasp to the foam to rough it up and shape it a little. Shape is decent now. Color is still pink.

So, now I put down a basecoat of brown latex paint on the crosspiece, and spray painted the wooden blade silver.

The hilt is still stark white PVC. So, I wrap the entire pipe with the black Gorilla Tape. It gives it a wrapped leather look from a distance. It looks like tape up close. Don’t get up close.   I’ll go over the tape later with some brown and black washes to make it look more like leather. It will do for now.

Finally, it’s time to start rusting this thing up. I now have Pre-Mixed Concrete Patch and Oatmeal, as suggested by Dave the Dead and others.

The concrete patch is very nice! I spread it on the prop like peanut butter on bread. Then, I took a cotton swab and started dabbing at the patch to give it a rough texture. Next, I threw the obligatory sand into the mix and added a little oatmeal here and there. I used the cotton swab to press the oatmeal in a little deeper. I only waited a little over an hour for the concrete patch to dry, before I started painting on the rust colors. In hindsight, not a good idea. I learn a lot from hindsight. Not so much by foresight. That’s Dixie’s department.

The finish turned out ok in the long run, but it took longer to dry and every little bump would cause the concrete patch to smear and show from under the paint. I also put some of the patch on a PVC pipe and let it dry for 24hrs. I had no problems with that piece at all. There’s that damn hindsight again.

I still have to try out the Great Stuff technique that Chris Davis mentioned in my earlier post. That’s a two person job, but Dixie is leaving me for a week for Vegas. Looks like I will have to postpone this for a bit. Unless someone wants to come over and help this weekend?

By the way, I posted a How-To on this same topic over on after I was asked how it was done. If anyone has some input, chime in on the forum. Here is the link to the post:

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=21644

 

Seriously, I could use some help this weekend. The grass doesn’t mow itself you know!

Corrosion Explosion

I got to experimenting with a few techniques for the old rusty nail, guaranteed tetanus shot look in the garage this weekend. I wanted the props to look more realistic during the daylight, and the black PVC fence was just looking too “tidy” for my taste.

I have this:

And I want this:

 

 

 

So, I dug out some left over plastic finials and started my quest for metal decay!

 

 

I’m not going to drag you step by step through the errors I made trying to get this to work. Dixie put up with enough abuse to cover everyone. I’ll spare you guys from the ordeal and skip to the end.

 

After 3 hours I finally ended up with the fine piece of tetanus on the right:

 

It doesn’t really take 3hrs to accomplish the look, it just takes me 3hrs of playing around and repainting to figure out what works.

Ok, this is what you’ll need:

• Orange latex paint
• Small sea sponge
• Wood glue
• 50/50 mixture of dark brown latex paint and water in spray bottle
• Mahogany wood stain
• Sand

And this is what you do:

1. Coat the item liberally with wood glue.
2. Throw sand onto the item ensuring it sticks to the glue. This will give you the grungy texture we are looking for on the prop.
3. Let this dry.
4. Take the sea sponge and randomly dab the orange latex paint over the item.
5. Spray or drip the 50/50 brown paint mix over the item while the orange paint is still wet.
6. Allow the two paints to run and mix.
7. Oh, this gets kind of messy so I hope you read ahead and haven’t just ruined your kitchen table!
8. Now, drip some of the Mahogany wood stain onto the prop to dirty up the look.
9. Set aside and let dry.
10. That’s it!

I’m not sure how well this will hold up outside in the elements, so you might want to seal this with a urethane to be safe.

I’ve read of other people using concrete patch to create their texture, so I ran out last night and bought a small tub of ready mix concrete patch for about $8 at Home Depot. I’ve applied it to a PVC pipe and rolled the pipe in sand but it takes 24 hours to cure, so I’ll update this post later with the progress.

I would love to hear how everyone else dirties up their props. The more techniques I can pick up the better, so chime in and let me know what you do with your haunt.

Now, back to the garage! I have to get columns and a Facade/Mausoleum designed and started.

I LOVE MY WIFE!

So things have been pretty busy around the Manor lately, but not in the Halloween sort of way. I’ve been feeling very anxious as of late because the blog has been neglected, no new props have been built, I’ve missed like a million Make and Take meetings (ok, maybe two or three actually), and all of our blog and forum friends think we’ve died or fallen off the face of the earth!

So, I’m a little stressed out about a hobby I love and enjoy so much. Feel like I’m letting people down. Then I get this in my email at work from my beautiful, loving, and understanding wife:

THAT’S THE SIGN!

This is like seeing the first flower of spring or the first snowfall of the winter. When Dixie starts thinking this way and put’s pen to paper, that’s the first sign of the Prop Season! My favorite season of the year!

Can’t wait for this weekend to get started!

Easter Bunny Hates You!

 

Have a Happy Easter everyone!

The Best of the Best: Skull Shoppe

It is with great honor that we are finally able to blog about a dear friend of ours with amazing talent and a new online store.

If you ever hang out at Hauntforum.com, then the works at this shoppe will be very familiar to you. These are the amazing works of sculptor extraordinaire Scourge from the forums. The man has a true passion for sculpting accurate and realistic skulls. He has been wowing us in the forums with his talent for quite sometime. He also happens to be an extremely nice guy!

So please support a fellow haunter and show the man some love this haunting season!

Congratulations on your new web store Scourge!