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 …
Category Archives: DIY
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 …
Cemetery Fence
Ski-Lift Ghost
This was our first prop. We built him in 1994, the second Halloween in our first house. There are no pictures of the build, but the ghost can be seen in a number of layouts in the yard of all three of our houses. In effect, it’s just a ghost riding a steel cable between …