The Halloween Arms Race
October 8th, 2010 by John Wolfe
I built and attached both arms to the Angel of Death in the last two nights. I was a little concerned about adding arms because this part of the project was another one of those unknowns. I’ve never actually built arms that are somewhat outstretched on a very large prop before. I’ve built lightweight newspaper and paper mache arms, reaching out on my small groundbreakers but never anything of this size. It’s always a concern because there’s so much weight for the hardware to support, but thankfully everything’s doing great and staying in place.
I used dowels for the upper and lower arms, then I attached bucky skeleton hands and wrists, after doing some modifications to their radius and ulna bones. The hands and wrists will be mached and the entire arm structure will be padded (to break up the straight lines of the dowels) prior to attaching the cloak or shroud.
For a while now, I’ve been toying with building an entire, upright zombie corpse that appears to be walking through the cemetery of my haunt. This experience of working on the Angel of Death has given me some additional ideas for pulling that off next year. I’ve already got a name in mind for the prop, too: “Skinwalker.”
In many Native American traditions and tales, a skinwalker is typically a person or entity who shapeshifts into an animal or creature, but I thought it sounded cool. And since this will be my first rotten-skin, walking zombie, I thought the name was fitting.
So, I guess my 2011 prep will be The Year of the Skinwalker.
October 8th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Looking great. Can’t wait to see this one finished, I’ve been watching for quite some time.
Hahah. Skinwalker. Everytime I hear it I keep thinking of Dresden Files. Or as he referred to the skinwalker – Shagnasty.
October 8th, 2010 at 4:43 pm
Yeah the year of the Skinwalker and I can think of a few other new projects you have working for the website not to mention this will be your first moving corpse…right? Wow! To make that whole thing move just a certain way in your cemetery, how are you going to do that? Will the Skinwalker be on something like a track on the ground or are you going to create it to be more of a remote control? I can’t imagine taking this on given just how many other intense projects you have going on for the website but if there was anyone who could pull it off, it would be YOU!
His arms look great and scary as heck. It totally looks like he’s reaching out for me and his hands are opened wide to remove the top of my skull and eat my brains
Love the arm placement and those long creepy fingers. Very nice and the cam shot last night was most excellent John. Thank you for including us and sharing so much of what you do for the site. Hard to believe Halloween is just weeks away….amazing!
October 8th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Skinwalker… I love it!! Here’s hoping you don’t have strong winds on Halloween or the angel might just fly. I’m so excited about this project. You do crazier and crazier things every year. You are the Halloween Prince!
October 8th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Terrormaster,
Thanks! Yeah, Shagnasty is one of those words that cracks me up too. Sort of like the conversation I had with Ethan about the word “raunchy” a few posts back. Certain words just have a ring to them that strike me just right.
Skinwalker’s always been a word associated with creepy stuff for me, cause there are a lot of legends about a skinwalker-type creature that supposedly inhabits a few of the mesas near where I live. Some friends and I used to go four-wheeling out in the desert around 2 o’clock in the morning many, many years ago. During one of the trips without me, they had a strange encounter with “something.” I’m not convinced it was anything resembling a skinwalker, but something sure spooked ‘em. Either way, I like that word and the image it creates.
Goldie,
Yeah, I have a lot of things in the hopper for 2011, my friend! Well, I’d love to make him an animated prop, but the Skinwalker’s going to be static. I’m just going to give him the appearance of trying to walk. I’ll probably place one foot in front of the other so it looks like he’s shifting his body weight a bit, give him a decrepit looking, bent-over to the side pose and have his arms outreached… that kind of stuff.
Speaking of removing the tops of skulls for eating brains, that gives me an idea: I gotta add a can opener to the Angel of Deaths hands to make the job of crackin’ skulls easier for him! You’ve heard of G.I. Joe with the Kung-Fu Grip, well this would be A.O.D. with the Can Opener Grip.
Glad you like the arms and fingers. I’m actually going to increase the length of the fingers to exaggerate them a little more too.
Thank you so much!
autumnforest,
That’s what I love about this part of New Mexico, it always exits October like a lamb. I’ll just keep staying calm knowing the weather’s gonna do the same this year.
Glad you like the Skinwalker idea! I’m already crazy on a personal level, I just have to keep finding new ways to channel that energy and put it to good use. Thankfully it seems to like to express itself through Halloween creations where I try to push the envelope a bit. Thank you!
October 8th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Very cool! “The year of the Skin Walker” , I love the sound of it. I heard of skin walkers before when they came out with the movie”skin walkers” It came out in 2007 and starred Jason Behr , it was rated PG13 but it was ok. I`ve also heard tales from a friend (native american) about skin walkers. And many other tales of his tribe. Very scary things happen.
I was also pondering how I would go about putting arms on my new dead guy. I have to hurry and finish his paper mache neck and chest so I can get to his arms and then figure out what he is going to wear in my field of screams. Thanks for the sneak peek at your Angel of Death. It looks great ! Can`t wait to see the whole thing put together.
October 9th, 2010 at 2:32 am
Very cool. I like the arm posse, it is going to give the prop a lot of personality. He is certainly threatening. Your work really keeps me inspired.
October 9th, 2010 at 11:52 am
Awesome man. just awesome. that’s all i can say right now..
October 9th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
ssflipo13,
I never saw that film, but I do remember seeing something about it. I’d like to hear some of the tales your friend shared with you one of these days. I love anything related to spooky stuff, whether it’s pertaining to real experiences or even legends and folklore cultivated and developed through oral traditions.
Your prop sounds like it’s going to be awesome! I’m not sure if you’ve watched the third installment in my Haunter’s Reality videos before, but I show some of the process of attaching a newspaper and duct tape-based arm to my groundbreaker. It may be of some help when it comes to putting arms on your dead guy: http://seasonofshadows.com/halloween-videos.htm
Thanks for your kind feedback about the Angel!
Ethan,
Thank you. And likewise, your work is wonderfully inspirational to me too! In fact, I have something planned for my haunt in terms of organic decor that was a direct inspiration from something you’ve done. I won’t say what it is right now, but I’ll reveal it when it comes time to post my 2010 haunt photos.
Matt Culver,
Much appreciated! Thank you.
October 10th, 2010 at 8:31 am
I am looking forward to it!