Step 1 – Making a Great Pumpkin How many cans of spray foam does it take to cover a garbage bag full of shredded newspaper with a thick enough surface that you’ll be able to carve a reasonable facsimile of a real, live pumpkin? I lost count. A dozen? This was a messy job. I …
Author Archives: Mike
Gar 3.0
This was the pinnacle of Gar’s evolution. It was also the last time he went outside. When the wings were redesigned they could become entangled in the horns, so the horns were removed from the prop. The linear actuators inside pulled strings to deploy wings, work the jaw, and incline the head. By the end …
Ground Breakers 2.0
We needed more zombies. The first step is making skeleton armatures. Materials: 1/2 ” PVC pipe 12-Gauge solid-core household wire (or equivalent) Cotton Batting Masking Tape Foam Skull A PVC spine has 7 holes drilled through it one inch apart. The second step is “realistic” pose-able hands. After a little corpsing, the finished product hits …
Gar 2.0 – Duct Tape Double
Gar was always meant to be a bit more formidable than he appeared in 2007. The metal frame that housed the wing armature, and turned the gargoyle’s head was basically mounted inside a duct-tape double of me, that was covered in monster mud. This version of Gar had the parts he needed to move the …
Grim 2.0
The plastic cloak on the pneumatic startle prop had to go. Grim would get a prominent place in the display, at the lower corner of the graveyard. Here are some pictures of the under structure, as well as the new garment that Becky fashioned for him. The shovel and fake grave completed his look. My …
Cain – Ground Breaker
Cain was ground breaking on a couple of fronts. Our first ground-breaker zombie. And our first attempt at corpsing something. The skeleton was made completely from scratch. It is a twisted, misshapen mess, and it kind-of works like that.
Gar 1.0
The gargoyle prop was a multi-year project, which started in 2007 and ending in 2010. The notion was to create an animatronic prop of a gargoyle on top of a pedestal of some sort. The eyes would light up. The head would turn to follow you as you walked past. And (to my mind) the …
Grim 1.0 – Pneumatic Pop-up Figure
Grim was added to the yard in 2006. As was common for props on their debut year, he was positioned close to the front door. He has a 24 inch pneumatic cylinder triggered by a motion sensor. In an unplanned benefit, there’s a slight delay between when the sensor goes off an when he jumps, …
Flying Crank Ghost
Our flying crank ghost is named Stanley. Stanley made his debut in 2005. He weighed a ton in those days, necessitating a counterweight on the rig to allow the ghost to climb back to the top. To display him, we ran an extension ladder between the garage roof and the front porch. It was just …