Halloween 2K12

[Sapper]

Happy October everyone!

I'm a nut when it comes to Halloween. I see October 1st as the start of the Halloween season. Every year I create a new prop. Whether it be an animatronic, ground-breaker, etc...

Thinking on making a zip-line, mat-triggered witch this year, but I will need significant fog to mask the line - I will post my progress.

Here was my haunt from a couple years ago:

Anyone else as into the 31st as I am?

[XClown1986]

Same here. Love Halloween. Favorite holiday of the year.

[Mrs Pantherfan]

I don't decorate my house..I just take advantage of being able to dress slutty

[LifeisaGarden]

I do. I usually do a haunted garage for the kids in the hood. Except for last year, I didn't do it because of a bum shoulder. I did decorate some outside though. The hood kids were pissed because I didn't do the haunted garage! They even looted my loot. Little bastards. I always have good candy, last year I gave out candy and Wendy's free Frosty coupons. This year I'm going to hide in the shrubbery and when the looting bastards come I'm going to jump out and scare the patooty out of them.

[Panthers_Lover]

My sister and brother-in-law are nuts over Halloween. My sister carves lots of pumpkins (permanent ones), which fill the yard, along with hand-carved tombstones, etc. My BIL dresses up in all black, drapes off the foyer in black and has a black light. He creates a new puppet "monster" each year that moves around in the foyer and scares the crap out of all the kids (and adults, too). They have people coming to their house in droves. A few years back, the local TV weather guy broadcast live from their yard -- they had made a "crashed" alien ship, complete with lights, smoke and dead aliens, on the roof. The puppet was an alien, and my sister, nephew and his wife, etc., all wore tinfoil hats. It was very cool. Not sure what BIL has in mind this year ... he never tells us until the last minute, and he always takes days off from work to get ready.

Oh, and they play creepy music and sound effects on outdoor speakers.

[Panthers_Lover]

Here's a photo of their house:

[LifeisaGarden]

Sapper did you make the woman in the window & the guy on the porch yourself? Did you use Great Stuff to make it or what? How?

[Sapper]

Sapper did you make the woman in the window & the guy on the porch yourself? Did you use Great Stuff to make it or what? How?

I used standard spray foam from Lowes (for both) on the exterior of each.

For the standing girl, I used a wooden base that I glued a female PVC input into, and had a 5 foot long male pipe stream through the torso. Her torso and arms I made from chicken wire that I paper-mached and reinforced with the foam. Her skull was the hardest part. I grabbed 4 bucky skulls from Morris costumes, but realized the weight would be too top heavy to use. I lucked out and found a pretty life-like plastic skeleton at Target that I altered and heavily used foam on to give more of a life like effect.

My inspiration was from this Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark image:

As for the sitting prop, I had to use some heavy gauge wiring for the legs/arms, and steel for the vertebrae (I got it at a blackhawk hardware). I heat-gunned a bucky skull for the head and crushed in part of the right side. The pelvis and ribs were part of a boneyard set I got from Spirit Halloween and altered a bit. More foam for the skin and prop blood I ordered from frightcatalog.com.

[LifeisaGarden]

awesome!

I haven't made many things but about 2 years ago I built a full sized toe pincher coffin that a 6'2" grown ass man can fit into. I built it so my brother could jump out of it. In the off season it makes a great storage box.

[Hawk]

everyone has an opinion and mine is that halloween is the stupidest day ever...although I grew up really really poor, so the free candy back then was a treat.

[Mrs Pantherfan]

If you dress slutty..it's more fun...just try it, Hawk...trust me

[Sapper]

Nice! I'm a big fan of toe-pinchers. If I had enough time before the 31st, I'd really like to build an animatronic toe-pincher with a doormat sensor, but I would have needed to start that in the summer.

I know that Halloween is a love/hate day for most people. I really don't know how I got into it to be honest. I grew up as a big fan of the horror genre, so I guess I took Halloween as a time to embrace it myself. Loved going to haunted houses, those pails they had at McDonalds etc...

It wasn't really until college that I started building props on my own. I loved getting scared as a kid trick-or-treating so I am hopefully returning the favor to the kids in the neighborhood.

Most of my inspiration came from www.pumpkinrot.com - he is the king of Halloween props.

[Hawk]

If you dress slutty..it's more fun...just try it, Hawk...trust me

please post pics so that I have something to start with

[Mrs Pantherfan]

ha..there are a couple from last year on my facebook :)