SLAYER CHRISTMAS LIGHTS LIGHTORAMA 2009

You may be able to tell that I am not much of a Christmas person, But I thought this was cool.

Where to go from here

I have taken a break from this blog to rest from a busy and vomit filled Halloween. Now I need to decide where to take this. I'm thinking of sharing prop building resources and techniques along with whatever oddities happen to cross my path.

The Matadors - Walking Dead

The Matadors - Teenage Zombie Sluts

Social Distortion - Far Behind

social distortion live before you die

Splice

Picked up Splice the other day, not bad.

One quick halloween post

Been recovering from a nasty GI bug so here is one quick shot from Halloween of Ghostbuster Gabe and Slimer. ( Yes I dyed the dog green it was Gabe's idea, used food coloring completely harmeless)

'Creepy' scarecrow wins contest

Over the last week, early voters at the New Harvest Park polling station also got to cast a vote in a decidedly scarier election.

The Knox County Parks and Recreation Department hosted its second annual "Scarecrows in the Park" competition and announced the winners Thursday at the weekly farmers' market held at the park.

First-, second- and third-place winners in the youth and adult categories were chosen by a public vote and a panel of three guest judges. This year's competition featured 16 scarecrows, 10 in the adult category and six in the youth, that lined the park's quarter-mile greenway.

This year's youth winners were Matthew and Jordan Graham. They competed against each other last year - Matthew winning third place and Jordan winning first.

"It was not fair," said Matthew. "She is too good."

The adult category also featured a repeat winner. Vic Zanoni, who has made many Halloween props, won first place for the second time with an impressive papier-mache scarecrow named Ivan.

"A lot of the stuff that I have done is kind of creepy and scary," he said, "and I wanted to have that creepiness, but I wanted it to be good for the kids."

© 2010, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.

News cast about scarecrows

http://www.wbir.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=644812474001#/Scarecrows+in+the+park/644812474001

First place again

I brought home first place for the second year in a row.

Winners to be announced today!

The winners of the scarecrow contest will be announced today at 5. Wish me luck!

More of Ivan

ITS ALIVE!!!!

I went out to new harvest park this morning before work to see if Ivan survived last nights storms, and much to my surprise and joy he is still standing! From the brief look that I got he looks like he came through pretty well

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Update

I was able to fix the leaning problem, (the ground was so wet that the support stakes were pulling out) but I discovered that Ivans head was really soft from the rain. It is supposed to be dry today, but really windy with more storms tonight. I am hoping that he dries out enough so that he can survive tonights round of weather.

Storms.

Last night into this morning bad storms blew through the area, but Ivan is still standing. He has a really bad lean going on but I should be able to easily fix that this afternoon when I get off work.

2010 Scarecrow Ballot for public voting

Ivan in the daylight

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2010

I hate to admit it but I actually liked this movie. It was nothing compared to the original and Robert Englund will always be Freddy but as a film on its own it was entertaining.

Information on the construction of Ivan

As a challenge to myself, i decided to build my entire scarecrow from scratch. Ivan is made of paper, flour, water, pvc pipe, plastic trash bags, wire, masking tape and paint. After trying several different papermache recipes, I settled on plain four and water to make the paste. It dried quickly and was rock solid. All of the vines are made from the paper you find on the exam tables at the Dr office. (I saved a few rolls left by a drug rep that were headed for the dumpster a few jobs ago) His head is made from issues of Metro Pulse going back a few months. i used a heatgun on the plastic to make it ugly and sealed the whole thing with spar urethane.

MEET IVAN

MY SCARECROW IS UP. GOOD OR BAD IT IS FINISHED. I am not very happy with the way he turned out but at least it is done.

progress

not much time to post I'll put up all of the pics tomorrow but here is one last pic before it is complete

SCARECROW UPDATE

Spent the weekend working on my scarecrow, it is mostly paper mache which is going to be interesting because I have only had success with mache once and the dog ate that.

Procrastination

This weekend I am going to start and finish my scarecrow, I can only hope that it will turn out good.

Tombstones

Spent Sunday working on tombstones. They are rough at t his point but they are coming along nicely.

Corpsing

The technique that I use for all of my corpse props has been used in Hollywood for decades. It is a simple way to take an existing skeleton and add, what looks like, rotten flesh. Here is the grand secret, cotton balls and liquid latex. I use latex flooring adhesive instead of liquid latex because of the price difference. Liquid latex is $49 per gallon and flooring adhesive is $10 per gallon. The only drawback with the flooring adhesive is it takes forever to dry and will be sticky for months unless you paint it. The method for corpsing is simple, unroll the cotton balls, paint some latex onto the surface to be corpsed, put the cotton down, and paint latex onto the cotton until it is saturated. (use an old throw away brush). Layer the cotton on until you get the desired look and sculpt it as you see fit, this is a messy process so lay down some paper or plastic. A sunny day will help in the drying process.

The Misfits - Halloween

Web spinner

All of the spider web on and around the ghost wind chimes was made with the web spinner. I tried making a hot glue web gun but the results were no where near as good as the simple spinner.

Defiling a mummy

"IF YOURE GONNA SCREAM, SCREAM WITH ME..."

2010 SCARECCROW

I woke up this morning with a splitting headache, turns out it was labor pains. My mental constipation has ended and I birthed out my scarecrow idea this morning. I hope I can Pull it off.

Family Traditions

Simple family traditions have become very important to us in the recent years. One of our biggest Halloween traditions has always been that we always watch FRANKENSTEIN, the 1936 Borris Karlof original. Last year was the first that we were not able to because we had lost our copy and didn't have the money to replace it. But our new copy came in the mail on Saturday and we are ready to go!

Yankee Candle Halloween scents

For Halloween Yankee candle has put out some special scents, Witches Brew, Trick or Treat, All Hallows Eve, Pumpkin Patch. All hallows eve smells great but not very Halloween, its a mix of Evening air and midnight jasmine. Witches brew is a patchouli based candle which it not a smell that I usually like but their version really sets the halloween mood. Trick or treat is the best it is a mix of candy corn and buttercream and smells like a bag of Halloween candy.

Frankenstein Legacy collection

My copy of Frankenstein The Legacy Collection should be in the mail today!

New candle holders

We picked up these Halloween candle holders at hobby lobby last weekend, the pics are a little blurry I'll fix that later.

Misfits - Halloween

Mental Laxitive

I need a mental Laxative to help to get rid of the blockage, that I have been suffering through, so that I can birth out my scarecrow idea. I think that I may be crowning.

Traditional Scottish Prayer

From ghoulies and ghosties And long-leggedy beasties And things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!

Loomis

Yesterday I went up into the attic to bring down some halloween decorations and I discovered that my scarecrow (Loomis) from last year needs some work. The heat of the attic has caused most of his hair to fall out and the bumping around he received during the move caused a lot of chipped paint, broken down shoulders, and a missing tooth. I had always intended to rework him into a more useable halloween prop but it looks like I have some restoration work to do first.

The happy family

Nothing personal to those who have the happy family stick figure stickers on their cars but I really hate those things. Until I found one that fit my "Happy Family"

Getting there

Slow progress is still progess

Last week I tried paper mache again. It worked great! I has the first layers of a nicely formed pumpkin. I left it on the table so that I could finish it up later and when I got home from work It was missing. After looking around I found that The dog had eaten all of the paper off of the form and had even pulled some of the stuffing out. (I did not kill her) Thank God I only used flour and water for this one.

Over the weekend I decided that my skull needed a make over. It is far from finished but I did give him a nose job, and some dental work as well as attached the beginning of his neck. I also tore off his eyelids they made him look sleepy.

working on my skull

did a little work over the weekend. I'll probably scrap him and start over.

More of Halloween past