Spooky Moon

Didn’t do much yesterday but buy a whole lot of PVC. After witnessing a windy day here, I decided the mausoleum would need a frame that could be weighted, so the whole thing didn’t blow away. Had to order some of the connectors online, so it’ll be Friday before I can build that.

Progress today, primer on back of tombstones, trim on mausoleum top (no pic), and, er, well, I was feeling a little blue when I went to Home Depot today for more foam. Came home with a couple of things I probably shouldn’t have, but eh, they go with the theme, and they weren’t expensive.

First, this mini ghost bride animated figure.

She needs some work, but her movements and lighting are rather nice. Also, I love her hands.

Then I found another projector toy:

This is sooo basic. You insert a slide into the rocking mechanism. You can have it solid or fading. I was thinking of projecting off center, so he looks like he’s peeking out the window.

Now, no more buying anything I don’t need for the stuff I’m currently building. And that shouldn’t be much.

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email

The Renaissance Festival was closed due to soggy ground. WAIL! We’ll try again next weekend.  So we came back home, and I took most of the day off. I needed the break. Of course, I couldn’t take the whole day off.

I’ve been wanting to make a packing tape ghost for ages.  I’d already looked up several tutorials and decided on my approach. It seemed like a nice, quiet thing to do today.

I started with a large, clear-ish plastic garbage bag over a wig head. I taped securely around the neck first, then started the details with scotch tape. I did larger areas with packing tape, and covered the whole thing in a couple layers.

Next, a hodgepodge of stuff atop my heavy bag went to form the rest, as I only wanted head and shoulders.

I carefully removed the wig head by cutting up the back of the form. It was harder than I thought–the tape made a very firm ghostie!

I hung her up with some florist wire. Decided I wanted ragged strips on the bottom, so I put more tape down and cut into her.  Yes, I’m aware she has 80s shoulders. Eh, I’ll do better next time.

We all know 50% of your grade in haunting is lighting. Now, I would love to light her from the inside, but that’s not going to be feasible. So she gets a pretty fire-and-ice light from the front. I’d like three of these to hang from the trees.

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email

Got the last of the names on the tombstones.

Got the triangular facade thingie on to the top of the mausoleum front. After this, I glue on embellishments, paint, and assemble.

Speaking of embellishments, these beauties arrived today from DG Gothic.  I’ll pair a skull and a flourish for the mausoleum, and the rest go on tombstones.

Today I’ll take a break to go meet Jenna and fam at the Ren Faire.  I’m just slightly excited.

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email

I had many plans today that involved things like standing, walking, even bending over. Alas, I woke up with an ear infection, and had to modify my plans so they involved sitting down. After all that waiting for cords for the Cameo, I didn’t want to go up and down the stairs to mess with the stencils. So I ended up just drawing letters. Er, I like them better.  I decided to use a hot stylus instead of a knife. Points off for neatness, but points on for ease and speed. The letters will be filled with black paint anyway.

I also didn’t want to go upstairs to check the name suggestions people gave me on Facebook, so I just made some up. I tend to go for method of death puns, so the four large stones get:

• Iva Nowie
• Etta Spyder
• Tripp Donabear
• Tiger E. Tedme

Heavy on the animal deaths.

Managed to get halfway through Tripp. Now I’m gonna weave off to rest.

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email

Nothing spectacular or specific today, just a long, long day of work.

These are the mausoleum walls. I’m using random cuts as braces.

Here’s part of the front being braced and glued.

Finally have cords for the Cameo, so now I’m getting names down on the stones.

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email

So I splurged on a fog machine this year. A cheapie.  My memory of fog machines is: so loud you have to yell over them, and basically ineffective. That was many years ago.

Before I even plugged it in, I looked for ways to make a cheap chiller. I found this:

Yep, just frozen water bottles and dryer duct. But does it work?

Well, here’s my test version:

I fit three bottles in there. If it works, I’ll paint the duct black. Here’s a before and after video:

Wow, does that ever work!  Also, this fogger is much quieter.

What I didn’t know is that it shuts off after about 30 seconds to cool down. That’s fine, it produces more than enough fog in a few seconds. I wish I had a timer for it, but I’ll just have to peek out the window and start it every once in a while.  I’ll have to make sure it has a dry box for outside, and that the transmitter is visible. Small challenge. I’ll figure it out.

I have also started gluing mausoleum walls. Woohoo!

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email

Sorry about the earworm. Okay, not really.

I used to fuss and measure and measure and fuss over tombstones.  These days, I just draw half of it, cut it out carefully, and use the cutout to make the other half. Easy-peasy. Just had to even up the sides a bit.

I am wobbly with a wire knife. I tried the mini wire knife table I have, but didn’t do much better. Is okay, looks good after sanding.

ALWAYS USE A RESPIRATOR WHEN SANDING. For pretty much anything.

Because there’s a gouge through the other side, I thought I’d use the printed side for the front. A little white paint will lessen the confustion from the printing…maybe.  Now I’m thinking I may use that gouge as a crack.

After this, I went to print a lettering stencil on my Cameo, and discovered I didn’t pack the cables with the machine. Very weird for me, but oh well. No idea where they are, so I’m overnighting replacements. They’ll probably get here late, so tomorrow I’ll occupy myself with cutting the rest of the stones, and maybe getting foam for a small mausoleum.

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email

So, in our adventures yesterday, we ruined something that worked really well, and discovered there were no other options in the house. Today I went adventuring at G Street Fabrics with a flashlight. For those who didn’t follow the link yesterday, you use the flashlight to see how well your projected image will show up. You want something dense enough to keep the edges of the light beam sharp, yet thin enough to be virtually transparent. I found a rayon/nylon blend that fit the bill well. Because I have a couple yards of it, I have more size flexibility, too.

The idea here is to light things behind her, to increase depth and highlight the floating effect.  I think she’s lovely. Now I have to build something for her. Maybe I’ll do a small mausoleum?  Yeah, because I can knock that out in a day. Ahem.

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email

This is Ray. He adopted us.

Not really. That’s just my way of saying it was a mostly good day.

The good: went to Home Depot for more birthday shopping (yesterday was a big wardrobe spree) to get some lighting. Along the way I picked up a fogger. I know, I may regret it, but I thought I’d give it a shot again, after many years without. I also got a Projector Kit for a surprisingly reasonable price. I was glad it had a USB hookup as well as the included SD card, because I figured the stuff with the projector would be kitschy and awful. Well, no. The videos were done by AtmosFX, and they do some lovely work. The “Beckoning Beauty,” which is a ghost bride, is so scary I wouldn’t play it for youngsters. So naturally, I’ve been using it as my testing video.

Thing is, I had a hard time getting anything done today. This is why:

My studio.

More horrible mess.

Workshop isn’t so bad

I can’t even find my scissors, so I’ve been carrying the one pair we have up and down the stairs.  Oh, and there are more studio boxes in the garage.

I want to back-project on to mesh, but I don’t have anything suitable. It was working really well on some thin plexiglass, but there were flaws, so I noticed there was still protective plastic on it, and that’s where the flaws were. So I removed it. You know what happened, don’t you? It’s the protective film that was picking up the projection.  So now the plastic is all clean…and useless. The screen mesh I have doesn’t work well, so I guess I’m heading to the fabric store tomorrow with a flashlight, to see what will work.

Having struck out there, I tried to find my hot wire knives to get started on a tombstone. Nopers.

So yay on acquisitions, nay on getting any work done. Tomorrow the Spousal Unit leaves early in the morning for a short business trip, so I’m gonna bury myself in the studio and see if I can churn something out.

PS: Another thing that happened during the hiatus: we lost our beloved KC, our kitty companion of 21 years. We didn’t plan on getting another cat. I’m allergic, and cats can be a pain in the ass. Well, on the last day we were in the hotel before we moved to our house, on literally the last trip in to get our stuff, I spotted a kitty on the grounds. He was a teen, starved, and came right to us. We took him to the vet to check for a chip, we registered on all the databases, we did everything we could to find his people, because he was obviously someone’s pet. But no people appeared. Except for us, I guess. Ray is an awesome cat, and as you can see from the picture, he’s filled out nicely. And yes, he’s totally a pain in the ass, but we love him.

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email

Not all store-bought props are bad. In fact, I quite like a lot of them. I’m only buying a few things this year, but this ghost from Target had to be one of them. All by herself, she’s pretty cool. She has a fire/ice lighting effect, and makes good sounds. And this from someone who usually hates sound in Halloween props.

Of course, she needed a little help.

First off, she only had two settings: OFF or SENSOR. That means she could only turn on via the motion sensor.  I looked up how to bypass the sensor, and the posts were all ‘solder this,’ and ‘short-circuit that.’  I went for something a little simpler. Since I knew she’d be in motion all the time, I found her sensor, and hung a little piece of balsa in front of it.

It has enough play that it moves with her, and activates the sensor on a regular basis. Usually 10 seconds or less.

Why is she moving? The owner of the place we’re renting left an oscillating fan for us. I stopped the oscillation, and tipped the fan on to the floor.  I just had to shorten some of her shroud so it would pick up the air better.

Add a blacklight, and it’s happy prop time!

The light effect doesn’t show up well on video, but trust me, she’s lovely. I may put her in a downstairs window to take advantage of her sound effects.

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email