Archive for January, 2009

Give Halloween a Little Respect

January 20th, 2009 by John Wolfe

I found this cool holiday cartoon at Planet Brenda – thought it summed up what most of us Halloween haunter’s find a little aggravating, regarding how Halloween typically gets lumped in with the other fall and winter holidays. In my neck of the woods, the city streets are decorated for Christmas a day or two before Halloween.

Of course, there may be some Thanksgiving fanatics out there crying foul about respect for their holiday. I can see it now – someone’s sitting in their garage, creating armies of paper mache pilgrims and life-size cornucopias. On second thought, it’s probably only Halloween which evokes that type of devotion. :)


Groundbreaker Workshop Image

January 18th, 2009 by John Wolfe

Found this workshop image taken a day prior to Halloween ’08. The night before Halloween, I changed my mind on the low hanging skin which exposed the top edge of the cheek bones and the jaw line. It seemed to distract too much from the rest of the prop and looked a little too symmetrical for my taste, so I painted the exposed bone late on Halloween Eve to match the color of the mache. In hindsight, as I look through the Halloween 2008 Page, it was probably a good choice, but the lighting of the haunt was so low, the exposed bone may not have shown up anyway.

I’ve had a few questions regarding the teeth – they were original to the foam skull head, but since I had to cut the jaw in half to make the mouth agape, the chewing surface was completely white Styrofoam. I covered the foam with mache and painted the chewing surface with a combination of colors and simple detail work. I then went back over all of the teeth with a Minwax Gel Stain to dirty them up a bit more.

Next time I get my teeth cleaned, this prop is coming with me – that way I can say, “See, mine look a lot better than his.” :)

Related Halloween Prop Posts

Happy Halloween
Halloween 2008 Photo Page