Season of Shadows Blog

Nox Arcana Giveaway

John Wolfe — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:55:45 +0000

Prepare to meet with phantom magicians performing feats of nightmarish proportions on a dark stage; tortured souls and imprinted elements of psychotic minds haunting the halls of an abandoned sanitarium; and undead corpses — too hungry to be held by the grave — ravaging the world of the living. These are the creatures and ethereal beings lurking within the tracks of Nox Arcana’s albums: “Theater of Illusion,” “Blackthorn Asylum” and “Zombie Influx.”

Nox has been kind enough to give Season of Shadows five brand new CDs to present to five separate winners in this giveaway. I have one copy of their newest release, Theater of Illusion; three copies of Blackthorn Asylum, and one copy of Zombie Influx. The first number to be drawn will receive Theater of Illusion. The next three numbers drawn will receive Blackthorn Asylum and the fifth and final number drawn will receive Zombie Influx. For more info on entry guidelines, see below.

Before entering, please take time to visit Nox Arcana’s website and show them some love while you’re there. Without their generosity, this cool giveaway would not have been possible. I’d like to thank Christine Filipak, Joseph Vargo and William Piotrowski for their amazing kindness and for the hours of wonderfully haunting listening pleasure they’ve provided to Season of Shadows visitors. Thanks guys! You totally rock!

If you’re unfamiliar with Nox Arcana’s work, you can checkout a few of their tracks in the SOS Halloween Radio section, too.

It’s always a priority to get prizes shipped out as quickly as possible in any of my giveaways, but especially when they close during the month of October. I’ll be doing my best to make sure each winner has their CD by Halloween.

Guidelines for Entering

Please, only one entry per household. Duplicate entries from the same IP will be deleted. These giveaways are really based on the honor system, but I do my best to make it as fair as possible for everyone. There’s no catch here, everything is free — including payment of shipping and handling for the Nox Arcana CDs — I cover all costs. To be entered, leave a comment below showing your interest.

Depending upon the volume of entries, comments may only be displayed under this post for a short time. As entries grow, I may remove comments to make it easier for visitors to scroll to the comment box and enter. However, I guarantee all entries will be saved in the order they are received.

When leaving a comment, be sure to include your correct e-mail address and be certain to keep track of your spam or bulk folder after the drawing closes, just in case. Each winner will be contacted through the e-mail address that’s registered with their comment. I will never share addresses, provided by entrants, with any third parties and you’ll never receive unsolicited mail when entering.

This Nox Arcana contest will end at 11:59 PM (Eastern Time) on October 7th, 2010. All legitimate entries will then be assigned a number in the order they were received. Five numbers will be randomly drawn to determine the winners.

All five winners will then be notified, via the email addresses they provided, no later than October 8th. If one, or all five don’t respond (with their shipping information) within two weeks, then one (two, three, four or five) more number(s) will be drawn to determine the new winner(s). Upon receiving their permission, the winners names will be featured at the top of this post.

If you would like to see your Halloween or paranormal website or business promoted through SOS and you have some appropriately themed items to give away, please contact me.

Spooky Bedfellow

John Wolfe — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:01:57 +0000

The film, Bedfellows goes to show you have to be cautious about who you get between the sheets these days. I won’t say any more or else I’ll ruin the surprise.

Source: YT user, DaywaltFearFactory

Halloween 2010 – Update 12

John Wolfe — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:18:43 +0000

I’ve been focusing on really gettin’ nasty and raunchy this last week! And no, I’m not talking about spending the previous seven days in a state of debauchery. Instead, I’ve been working hard on applying mache. I just like using words like raunchy and nasty to describe the look I’m trying to achieve when creating the corpse’s skin. Here’s the twelfth installment in the Angel of Death’s update vids:

Halloween Garden: Update 7

John Wolfe — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 21:19:15 +0000

My little patch of land appears to be entering into a new phase: the life cycle of many of my plants has either ended or it’s coming to an end. As I’m feeling a sense of appreciation and thankfulness for not only what those plants yielded, but also for the learning experience tending to them has provided, I can’t help but also feel a little sad. However, on the upside, I can now devote the majority of my attention to encouraging my pumpkins to mature and grow.

Witch’s Rune

John Wolfe — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 17:58:43 +0000

Listening to songs like the one contained in the following vid always inspires a peaceful feeling within me — one of being harmoniously connected to all living things. The beautifully haunting folk/chant sounds in “Witch’s Rune,” by S. J. Tucker, are especially affective at guiding my thoughts of connectivity to harvest and autumn’s approach.

Source: YT user, KeepMusicPagan

For more info on S. J. Tucker, visit SkinnyWhiteChick.com.

Lost in the Darkness

John Wolfe — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 17:48:44 +0000

Some photos of dense forests and deep woods, accompanied by Nox Arcana’s “Lost in the Darkness,” gets the spooky vibe going in this vid entry.

Source: YT user, piotrpw1976

For more info on Nox, visit NoxArcana.com. And stay tuned to SOS in September, because I’ll be hosting a really cool CD giveaway sponsored by Nox!

Halloween Cam Running in Shop

John Wolfe — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:34:19 +0000

Everything’s set to start the webcam feed from the workshop at 8 PM (mountain standard time) tonight. I’ll be applying some mache while a variety of Halloween music plays in the background. Hopefully, as the feed stays consistent and we get closer to the big night, there should be some conversation in the chat box too. If you wanna take a peek or have a chat, please stop by the Halloween Webcam page.

Speaking of mache work, I finally shot an Angel of Death update vid this morning:

On another note, I’d like to congratulate J. Allison of Atlanta, Georgia; Debby Reagan of Sanford, Maine and Barry “Paranormally Lucky” Huddleston (He’s been on a big winning streak at SOS lately!) of Florida. They each won a copy of the book, Halloween: Vintage Graphics. Congratulations, you three and thanks again to everyone who participated in the Vintage Graphics Giveaway.

Witch Hunt

John Wolfe — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:40:00 +0000

Today’s vid features scenes from the old horror film, The City of the Dead (a.k.a. Horror Hotel), backed by YT user, alacazam’s great dark ambient sounds.

If you enjoyed this piece, I highly recommend checking out alacazam’s YT channel. He has several more spooky vids, which feature his original music. In fact, I’d love to post each of them as entries, however, their embed features are disabled.

Monster Art

John Wolfe — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:39:22 +0000

A HUGE thanks to Ethan for turning me on to some great, retro illustrations by Gojin Ishihara! According to the site, Pink Tentacle, Ishihara’s work was featured in many childrens books about supernatural creatures and monsters throughout the ’70s. The image I’ve included is a creature known as the ceiling dweller and was part of the “Illustrated Book of Japanese Monsters.” While I can totally appreciate Gojin’s work now, a part of me wishes I had seen these as a boy. Monsters were a huge part of my life then and I could easily get lost in the details of artwork depicting crazy looking creatures for hours at a time.

Thanks again, Ethan. And to see more of these awesome monster images, checkout Pink Tentacle. They’ve uploaded thirty-six of the ghastly things.

The Mummy’s Bracelet

John Wolfe — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 02:17:12 +0000

Four years prior to Bobby (Boris) Picket’s “Monster Mash,” Lee Ross was doing a little monster rock and roll of his own. “The Mummy’s Bracelet” (1958), tells the tale of an angry mummy extracting his revenge on a couple for taking his bling.

Source: YT user, RocknRollDaddyO

I first heard this last year on Sirius-XM’s Halloween channel and I was immediately hooked on the tune… told you guys I like campy Halloween stuff just as much as the spooky.