In the world of Dark Conspiracy, there are places in the world where the walls between dimensions have weakened, allowing things to slip through from their world into ours. In these regions, known as “Demongrounds”, things are not always as they appear, and the affects on reality are sometimes warped and twisted by the influence …
Category Archives: DIY
Cemetery Gate 2.0
In 2020, due to the COVID pandemic, we moved the cemetery entrance to the front of the yard, added gates, and chained it up. There will be no entry into the yard this year — on the big night, we’ll distribute treats to the kids from a safe distance. One of the challenges with the …
Jack
All of the props have a name, and that name was determined at some point during development of the concept. Jack is named for two distinct notions: 1. (for obvious reasons) Jack Reacher, and 2. (for no less obvious a reason): Jack-in-the-Box. First. The box… For 2020, ‘Jack’ will be one of our static ground-breaker …
Grim 3.0
And then one year, Grim’s face just dry rotted right off. Not as terrifying as you might think. In 2017, we gave him a new mask, and added LED’s in his eyes. In 2019 he got new hands (prior to this, he had two left hands). Grim History: This prop has evolved over the years…
“Dusty” The Crouching Ghoul
We started seeing a bunch of ‘crouching ghoul’ props being built, in an attempt to replicate this character: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egksi_wWvFg . Special thanks to Rob Beach (Scares on Sequoia) for posting details of his build that gave us a leg up on the mechanism to get Dusty started. The first order of business was to work …
“Gary” The Revenant
Becky saw these cool wraith things with a massive hood. She decided she wanted to make one. And I decided that if we were going to make it, it was going to move. Gary uses the “Watchman” Prop Driver (Mark 3) for his back-and-forth motion.
“Watchman” Prop Driver
Everyone seems to be doing variations on the watchman prop this year. I saw some pictures of the mechanism and decided to document making one myself. I’ve built two so far, so the pictures below are first from the prototype, and then from the “tighter” Mark 2, and then the stronger Mark 3. Mark 1 …
Fog Chiller
Ghost Train
Becky saw some examples of ghostly figures, formed from chicken wire, and bathed in a rippling light, appearing like spectral apparitions at the back of the yard. I thought it would be even cooler if they could move around. So I started trying to figure out how I could make a device that would move …
Stanley’s Mausoleum
We needed a new place for Stanley to hang out. It needed to be tall enough that he could travel his full range of motion (over 2 feet), be protected from wind and rain, and… well… look cool. Putting together the structure wasn’t the challenge. The challenge would be building it in a modular way …