November 1st: Last night was awesome! We all had a lot of fun. I want to thank everyone in my family that helped along with all of our visitors, trick or treaters and their kind words. I'm already looking forward to next year. Stay tuned- I'll have the final 2007 Halloween page up soon, until then here are two pictures from last night.
October 22nd: It took a little longer than I planned, but here are the finished scarecrow images, using different lighting angles.
I've estimated that there are over 2500 hundred individual pieces of papier mache on his face, body, and hands. The majority were very small pieces of towel that were rolled tight to create the texture.
September 22nd: Here are two more scarecrow progess shots. I originally planned to show images of a new prop I've been working on, but I decided to finish up the scarecrow first. I just mached the fingertips- giving them some exaggerated length, but haven't painted them yet. I used bucky hands, but the finger bones were way too small for his proportions, so I improvised with wire, duct tape and mache. The palms still need some mache along with portions of the lower torso. I have plans to distress his shroud and give it a more streamlined look as well, unless inspiration strikes and I change my mind, which happens frequently as my props evolve.
I'm cranking it into high gear with Halloween fast approaching, so I'll have more pictures up very soon.
September 3rd: With the labor day holiday coming to an end, it feels like the official Halloween countdown can now begin. Since I don't have any drastic new developments to show on my current prop work (yet), and it is beginning to look a lot like Halloween- I thought I would share a few pics from last year, that didn't make it into my 2006 page.
All of these images were taken on Halloween night, except for the lower left shot. It was a practice image taken two nights before Halloween. I plan on doing a dry run, again this year, on the night of the 30th.
August 11th: At last he's taking shape. Well, at least the kind of rotten shape I've been shooting for all along. I've finished the upper portion of the body and head. The parts that are finished are painted now, but the lighting washed him out a hair. He has a rice grain base with a combination of dry brush techniques using tan and grey. I really decided to go crazy with the sinew since my last update. I may be putting the rest of his body on hold for a few weeks though, as I have another corpse that needs some attention. Please check back soon- I'll be starting updates on my new project.
July 31st: Showing the recent addition of texture to the body. My previous images were taken from the right side, so I thought I would switch things up this time, by showing the left. I still need to finish the texture on the neck and lower portion of the ribcage, along with more touch up layers on the head and body. I'm really enjoying his "sinewy" look. I haven't painted him yet- the new color variation is coming from the overhead light.
When he's all finished I'll show a side by side shot, sort of like a grim version of the popular before and after image comparisons supplement companies use!
July 19th: A couple more progress shots. I've decided to do a lot more detail work than I initially planned- inspiration struck as I started working on the face, so I didn't want to leave the body with a different texture. I'm in the process of 're-texturing' my way down the right side of the ribs. I'm going for a drawn tight, almost peeled look on this one.
July 10th: A couple of work in progress shots of my scarecrow prop. Another few layers of mache to thicken the neck up, cover the skull, a rotten paint job and he'll be as good as old!
He matches my entire ground breaker theme, but is about twice the size of my average ground breakers. I've mounted him on a 2x4 that's been drilled out at the bottom to accommodate a metal rod, which will lift him to just a hair over nine feet tall. I used the same rib structure that's found in my heavy duty ground breaker how-to. His skull is made of foam and came from Big Lots (purchased last Halloween). Bucky arms will be mounted at the far edges of the cross beam to further exaggerate his long limbs. I'm still looking for a dark shroud or trench coat to complete his outfit.
