ScareFX Animated Spiders Mechanism

I've had a number of emails asking how I animated the spiders in our Spinning Spider Web Victim scene. I've put together a short video of the setup. Check it out in the link below.

Halloween 2010 - Another Successful Year

A close to perfect year weather wise. A wind kicked up about mid-way through Trick 'r Treating, which of course killed the fog effects but otherwise everything went great. We gave a few scares and everyone left with a full-sized Hershey bar.

Sleepy Hollow Scarecrow Head

Carved a Funkin this morning. Think I might have cut myself.

Distressing the Animated Coffin Top

I had a question about creating the texture on the Animated Creepy Coffin. Since I used soft cedar fence boards for that prop, it was pretty easy to use a rasp bit on my electric drill to distress the wood.



No special technique was used. Just go at it until it looks like you want it to look.

Inside the Animated Creepy Coffin

Many of you have seen the Animated Creepy Coffin I made for Halloween 2006. I never got around to doing a proper how-to for that coffin.

However, I've had several questions about the mechanism used in the prop so I dug up several old images of the internal mechanics.



The bottom of the front of the coffin lid is attached with a couple of hinges.



A wiper motor with a crank arm powers the coffin lid at the top.



A clevis pin and a couple of brackets attach the crank arm to the top of the coffin lid.

Giant Skull

Like many others this year I could not pass up getting one of the giant skulls from our local Costco. The sound is lame and I really don't like the LED eyes but I think I can use this skull as part of an huge imposing creature for Halloween this year.

Fall Is On The Way

There are certain indicators of the impending return of the Halloween season. One is when our local Costco begins stocking my favorite seasonal brew. Happy camper here.

Trick 'r Treat Scene 2009

As I mentioned in a previous post, our Trick 'r Treat scene was one of the few we were able to get set up during the very rainy Halloween 2009. Unfortunately, the rain let loose again before I could get many good night photos. The photograph above is one of the few that I managed to take with the Nikon D90. I think the sheet draped scarecrow and the fence worked pretty well.

Black Eyed Pumpkin

I keep our old jack-o'-lantern's around after Halloween and watch them as they decompose and return to the soil. This year a mold has turned the eyes of this jac black.

Trick 'r Treat Sam Prop 2009

I continue to get questions and comments about our Trick 'r Treat Sam prop that we made a couple of years ago. I'm glad the movie finally came out so more people will learn what it's about.

Our Trick 'r Treat scene was one of the few we were able to get set up during the very rainy Halloween 2009. Unfortunately, the rain let loose again before I could get any good night photos. But here is a picture of Sam right before we put him out that evening.



Sam was quite a simple Halloween prop to make. Here's a short description of what I used.

For the base, I built a PVC pipe armature based on the estimates of this calculator (http://www.zombietronix.com/calculator_biped.php).

For the hands, I used $6 Don Post severed hands purchased at Spirit Halloween that are slit at the wrist and fitted to a piece of PVC connected to the frame. A couple of pieces of burlap were used as "fingerless gloves" over the hands.

For the head, I used a Styrofoam wig head covered in burlap stitched up the center with button eyes and manila rope around the neck.

The pajamas were cut out of two pieces of orange craft felt purchased at JoAnn fabrics. It was cut to be larger than frame size so it would be baggy. Those two pieces were sewn together along each side. I used some poly fill inside the pajamas to give him some body bulk.

The candy bag was purchased at Big Lots a couple of years ago. It has a bloody hand that can be dangled on the outside or left inside the bag. The stick candy was carved from a circle of wood and a wooden dowel and painted to match the one in the movie.

A pre-Halloween photo

I always like to take a night shot or two before Halloween to see how things are looking. It's not quite right yet but we still have few days to go.

This was picture was taken with a very old Canon Digital Rebel (1st gen). Need to see how things will look with the Nikon D90.

Trick 'r Treat [Blu-ray] (2008)

If you didn't get the Blu-ray addition of Trick 'r Treat, you're missing some good special features. The commentary by Dougherty, Burns, Wilkins and Pipes was great and really told the story behind the movie. The "Trick 'r Treat: The Lore and Legends of Halloween" was excellent as well.

It's also nice to have a digital copy that will play on our computer. Although a DRM-free version would have been better.



Hopefully this year more people will recognize my Trick 'r Treat scene and appreciate my Sam prop that I made TWO years ago.

ScareFX Wiper Motor Rocker Project Description

Quite a few haunters have asked about the inner workings of the Rockin' Granny Halloween prop.

I've put together a project description on the ScareFX web site.

I also posted a video of the "undressed" prop in action.

ScareFX Rockin' Granny 2009

Here's our latest Halloween prop made with a wiper motor. She'll be part of a new scene this year. It's a misdirection prop created to set up the scare.

Maggot Buffet Mask

We received our newest mask yesterday. That was just in time for our adding it to our latest prop. The mask was made by Bump In The Night Productions and was purchased from Grim Reapers. It's called Maggot Buffet.

Spinning Spider Web Night Video Clip

I posted a short video clip of our spinning spider web victim prop on Halloween Night 2008.

You can check out a how-to for the project on the ScareFX web site.

http://www.scarefx.com/project_spider_victim.html

Zombie Crossing Sign 2008

If you have not played around with befunky.com for adding effects to your images, go and check at that free service. I uploaded a picture of our "Zombie Crossing" sign from last year and this was the result.

Flaming Pumpkin Clip 2008

This is a short video clip of the flaming pumpkin I made last year. It's just a foam pumpkin from Micheal's with a silk flame. It was modeled to look like the one in the unreleased horror anthology, Trick 'r Treat, written and directed by Michael Dougherty.

Images Broken

I moved one of my sites recently to a new server. Unfortunately that move has broken many of the image links on this blog. I'll be going through the posts and relinking the images.

Dusting of Snow on Rotting Pumpkin

We got our first bit of snow last night.