Blucky Got Wrapped

I told that silly blow-molded skelly to stay away from the spiders in the garage.

Did he listen? No... Now he'll be in the spider scene this year. Poor blucky.

Big Year for Big Lights

When to Big Lots yesterday. I got this deal in the hardware section of the store. Spencers sells a single 48" blacklight for $30 and Lowes sells one 48" bulb for $10. I got the blacklight below for $13.88.

Spirit Halloween Superstore

Just found out there will be a Spirit Halloween Superstore at CHESTERFIELD CROSSING at Route 360 & 288.
http://www.spirithalloween.com/

That's about 10 minutes from my house!

Yikes. Better put the credit cards under lock and key.

Best Buy of the Year So Far

Got a tip on Methodz that Best Buy was running a sale on strobes last Wednesday. I picked up this one for $14.99 plus $4 for shipping. It arrived Monday. Under $20 for this huge strobe is a great deal. I was blown away by the size and power. Bad to Bone likes it too.



This was one of the "Hot Deals" Wednesday specials that Best Buy runs each week. However, you can still get one, but it's back to the regular price of $29.99 + $3.99 for shipping.
http://tinyurl.com/bz49w

Stand for the Dungeon Cage

Yesterday was blazing hot here in central Virginia. That did not stop me from going to Lowes and picking up some 4x4 lumber to build a stand for the new dungeon cage. It was a pretty simple construction project. I used cross lap joints and some lag screws to hold it together. I used pressure treated lumber so I could store it outside without fear of it rotting between uses. It can be easily disassembled if needed. I'll "age" both the wood and the cage next. I hate the "new" look of both right now.

Blucky wanted to try out the new cage so I let him. He will not be there for halloween.

New Popup Armature

Brent Ross makes some of the best pneumatic mechanisms around. Check out this animated pirate he built last year. He was having a sale so I bought one of his lightweight lifters. Since I haven't learned to weld yet, I wanted to a have a professional armature model to copy once I get to that stage in my prop building. It's quite nice. The light lifter is engineered to operate a 20" travel from a starting point of 10" up to 30". I hooked it up to my compressor yesterday. It worked great straight out of the box and should provide a nice startle.

New Sound Recorder/Players

Last year I used one of Radio Shack's 20-Second Recording Module kits to add sounds to one of my props. I used the instructions from EarthSands Halloween.

It worked fine but I spent about $20 for materials and it took quite a bit of time to put it together. One downside is there's only 20 seconds of recording time.

In a post last fall on HalloweenForum.com, Zombie-F recommended using Scarey Terry's plans to build a digital sound recorder. Being pressed for time (and a little lazy right now too), I took the easy way out and ordered a couple of assembled units from Cowlacious Designs. For $24 each, I have units that can record 60 seconds at a 8kHz sample rate. I'll be using them with my air props this year.

Blucky Gets a New Ride

The old family ride was on it's last leg. Blucky liked this one so that's what we got. He's always safety first too. But he's not in charge come Halloween.

New Dungeon Cage

Last year I ran across a life-size talking caged skeleton at http://www.hauntedcreations.com/animatronic_skeletons.html
They charge $895 for one. That’s too much so I’m building one myself. I already have a talking skull that I put together from Scary Terry’s plans and I’ve purchased a full bucky skeleton from Anatomical. I was planning on building a cage but I saw this image from Transworld 2005.

I headed over to Eccentric Gryphons to check out their Dungeon Cage Collapsible Gibbet. It’s a full scale replica of the medieval metal-cage torture device used in Europe. Having a bit more money than time right now I sent them a PayPal payment for $125 plus shipping. It arrived today.

I've got to tell you I'm thrilled. I’m sure I could not have built a better prop in the next 75 days.

It was very easy to assemble. I had it together in about 15 minutes. The plastic appears to be an ABS-type laminate. It’s a full quarter inch thick and very lightweight but it seems strong and flexible. It’s nearly six feet in height and a full-size bucky will fit easily.

The collapsible design really rocks. Storage space is at a premium here so it will great to slide it back into the box when the season is over.

Here are a few pics as I put it together.

Looks great in the bedroom...no?

Got Latex?

Many thanks to Vlad (our favorite Prince of Darkness) for pointing us to a great source for corpsing latex.

http://www.cementex.com/

You can get a gallon of this expired stuff for about $15.

Revisit the Haverghast Family

Now on my current playlist is Midnight Syndicate's lastest soundscape, The 13th Hour. I like it a lot (but I'm a fan of MS).

Check it out if you get a chance. You can listen to two downloadable files of the 25 track CD at this site.