Halloween Photos 2006

Owl

I saw this owl last year in The Crow 1994's collection. I found it this year for a good price. It's much better than the all black one I had.

Rat

I liked this foot long rat so I added it to the collection.

Both New Coffins Together

Animated Creepy Coffin

This new prop was designed to look like this Creepy Coffin commercial prop. When I saw it online and in the stores, I liked the concept and the look. However the commercial version was static and made of Styrofoam. And it cost $99.

Instead of buying that prop I took the money and built this 6-foot animated version. It uses a wiper motor to open and close the hinged front. The outside chains and lock are plastic and foam but inside there are five pieces of real chain swinging and banging. A couple of ACC arms replaced the foam ones on the commercial version. It cost me less than $100 to make and will outlast the commercial version by many years.

Here's a picture. A how-to project description will be posted next month. Here's 10-second video clip showing the motion.

Corpse in a Coffin

I added a corpse to my $25 Toe-Pincher Coffin. Here's a picture.

Crazy Camo

I ordered some Ultra-lite Crazy Camo Nets from Barre Army Navy Store. I placed my order last Wednesday and it shipped the same day and arrived Saturday. They have a good price on high quality netting that meets anti-fire certifications. Good stuff.

$25 Full-Size Toe-Pincher Coffin

This year I built a couple of full-size toe-pincher coffins to compliment the half-size coffin we built back in 2004. I posted a project description on the ScareFX.com site. Here's a picture of the coffin that will be the home for a new corpse I'm currently making.

New from Spirit Halloween & Spencer's Gifts

Purchased a couple more latex props today. The demon came from Spirit and the spider from Spencer's. The demon will be in the graveyard and the spider will be on the porch. Both are nice sized props. I really liked the details on the demon and black widows are the creepiest spider to me. It will replace the tarantula on the giant web this year.

ScareFX.com Gets a New Look

I've updated the design of the ScareFX.com web site. The content from the old site is still in place with the same page names so links and bookmarks will not be broken. I'll be adding new content continually over the next couple of months.

Poseable Gargoyle

This little poseable gargoyle came today.

The 2005 Grave Digger

The Crow 1994 asked about the details of the grave digger prop I made last year.
Here is what he looked like on Halloween night 2005.


The mask is a display copy (no cutouts for the eyes) called Gravedigger from Death Studios. A wig head was used inside the mask (with some plastic grocery bags stuffed into the gaps. The wig head was placed over a 1/2" PVC "neck".



The hands are Star Wars Emperor Palpatine latex hands from BuyCostumes. Heavy wire was placed in the hands so they could be positioned on the shovel and lantern.



The frame is 1.5 inch PVC pipe and fittings with chicken wire to provide some "body". The frame is slipped over iron re-bar driven into the ground. The 1/2" PVC neck is inserted into a reducer fitting placed in the 4-way fitting. Here's a great calculator that can help with proportions.



The coveralls are from the local Tractor Supply Company.

Did the Rounds at the Stores Today

I'm off on Thursdays and it's raining so I thought I'd check out the merchandise at the stores today. The Spirit store is not open yet and I've already gotten the things I wanted from Big Lots this year. So I went to Party City, Halloween Express, Spencer's Gifts, and Target.

I saw a nice Black Widow spider at Spencer's. I think I might add that one to my spider collection. They also have the Scary Demon with Cross which is definitely on my list to add to the graveyard.

Halloween Express has tons of costumes and quite a few props. I saw a couple of spiders and a giant roach that looked pretty good. They had a couple of latex vultures that looked better than the one in Spencer's.

I picked up a couple of the large poly-resin gargoyles and a poly-resin cross from Target today. Last year I waited too long to the get the bigger ones and had to settle for the smaller canine gargoyles. Those poly-resin props are nicely detailed for the money.



My giant toad arrived from the Toy Lounge today. I like him.

Bones and Eyeballs...

Vlad, over on HauntForum.com, put together a group buy with Marilyn at Anatomical Chart Company. I picked up another Bucky, some body parts and a Mr. Thrifty spider. We got excellent prices on these goodies. If you're not a HauntForum member, these group buys are yet another reason to join!

Finials for a PVC Fence

If anyone is building a PVC fence, I wanted to point out of a source for finials.

I purchased the plastic finials pictured below from DecorativeIron.com. The item number is 16.2029.

These square finials will fit over 1/2" schedule 40 PVC. However, it is a very tight fit and it would be very difficult to get them on without heating up the PVC. If you use a heat gun to warm the PVC, the finials slide on very quick and easy. It creates a very good fit after the PVC hardens. In fact, it's very difficult to get them off.

Shipping was a bit high from DecorativeIron to Virginia at $14.53 for 100 finials, keep that in mind if you order.

BUT... they look pretty good and they kept Bucky inside the graveyard.

Scarecrow Showdown at HauntForum

Zombie-F's HauntForum has another prop building contest underway. The Scarecrow Showdown will be the last this season. They have some great prizes and there will be some terrific scarecrows built for this contest. Check it out.

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=2699

It's a BAD Seed

I received my second order from Jeff over at TheFrighteners.com today. The Bad Seed Creature Reacher looks good. I'm not going to be using it as a costume but as part of my reworked riser prop.



Here's the entire costume in a catalog shot.


This is the prop I will rework using the Creature Reacher.

Out of Darkness

I received my copy of Midnight Syndicate's new retrospective CD in the mail yesterday. The CD features re-recorded and re-mastered horror music classics from Midnight Syndicate's Midnight Syndicate, Born of the Night, and Realm of Shadows as well as four previously unreleased tracks. I purchased my copy from Jeff over at TheFrighteners.com. He has good prices and quick shipping.

For more information and some sample tracks, head over to MidnightSyndicate.com.

A Couple Favorite Disney World Props

I'm thinking I need to make a hearse and some more tombstones.

HauntForum Contest Voting Now Underway

If you have not visited Zombie-F's HauntForum, do yourself a favor and head over there. The 2006 Tournament de Tombstone voting is taking place. Some great tombstones were made for the contest and it will be hard to choose the best.

http://www.hauntforum.com/showthread.php?t=2578

Got Some Inspiration Care of a Trip to FLA

We took the kids down to Disney World last week. While the Haunted Mansion is looking old and tired inside, it was still great to snap some photos while in line. There are a couple of edited images below. However the lobby of the Hollywood Hotel still looked wonderfully creepy.

March Madness?

It should be time to get out of the prop making slump but I'm still not motivated... Perhaps soon.