Okay, so you know how to detail haunted house walls. But such knowledge means absolutely nothing without any walls to detail! So I have combed YouTube for the greatest selection of videos on the subject I could find. Although I tried to cover the greatest variety of walls possible, there is bound to be some …
Tag: prop
Oct 10 2016
Corpsing
“Corpsing” (sometimes known as “corpsifying”) refers to a technique where a prop skeleton is treated so that it looks like a decayed corpse. The most popular type of skeleton used for this is a human anatomical skeleton. Many tutorials refer to this kind of skeleton as a “Bucky,” due to the website “Bucky’s Boneyard” (now …
Sep 18 2016
The Fungi From Yuggoth, Part Two
Here are the construction details of the flying Mi-Go created by Mark Jones. It’s a clever, inexpensive method for creating large-scale props using expanding foam over a PVC armature. I’ll turn things over to Mr. Jones: Body: The body parts are made from Expanding Foam used in packing. I traced a shape of the body …
Sep 17 2016
The Fungi From Yuggoth
This is what Halloween should be like. Mark Jones was kind enough to send over some pictures and background material from the Lovecraftian presentation he created for his Halloween get together. It not only featured a Mi-Go brain cylinder, but an entire swarm of the Fungi flying overhead. I host a big Halloween party every …
Apr 25 2016
More Tentacle Fun
Let us have a moment of silence for the pool noodles that sacrificed their lives for the cause. You will not be forgotten! Last week I posted some shots of the awesome textures produced when you slash a pool noodle with a razor knife and then blast it with a heat gun. I picked up …
Apr 21 2016
A Solution in Search of a Problem
When I need to relax there are few things more rewarding than melting things with a heat gun. Today I was goofing off with a spare pool noodle and tried slashing it across it’s width with a razor knife before gently melting the surface. The result was a really interesting ridged texture interspersed with bubbly …
Jan 12 2016
Comes the Kraken
I’m in the process of making a sideshow-style gaff of a “Kraken tentacle”. The basic technique is identical to the one in the original “Making a Tentacle” tutorial, but veers off a bit from the “Tentacles: The Suckering” followup. This approach produces much more realistic suckers by using short lengths of aquarium tubing attached to …
Aug 26 2015
How To Make Cheap Foam Organs
I noticed I keep discussing tutorial videos from Stiltbeast Studios in December, which might give the impression he only does spooky Christmas props. This is not the case at all and I want to focus on one of his more traditional tutorials. If you have access to chunks of foam and fake blood, then you …
Mar 04 2015
The Worm Turns
Surprisingly enough, I do a lot of decorating for Halloween. I used to be involved with a number of haunted house attractions and loved the kind of big, flashy props that those environments require. Electric chairs with flashing strobe lights and maniacs wielding roaring chainsaws are certainly effective, but as I’ve grown older I’ve developed …
Dec 02 2014
The Ponape Scriptures: My Edition
With all this discussion of tomecraft I thought it would be appropriate to share some of my own efforts. All of these pictures are from a small run of about a dozen copies of the “Ponape Scriptures” that I did around ten years ago. I thought I’d lost all the pictures I’d taken of them, …
Oct 15 2014
How To Make A Freddy Krueger Glove
Getting your hands on a good quality Freddy Krueger glove can be expensive, especially if you can’t find one in your area and have to order it online instead. The poor quality of the lower priced unlicensed versions is also less than attractive. Thankfully you can easily make one of your very own for next …
Oct 03 2014
Papercraft Chainsaw
A roughly life-size version of a mini chainsaw. Wouldn’t this be a great inexpensive and light weight costume accessory? Or perhaps you might prepare to use it as a static prop in your home haunt or Halloween display. Place it by a fake severed head (or an old mask stuffed with wadded up paper towels), …
Sep 04 2014
Wooden Cthulhu Fetish
From the Miskatonic University Special Collections, a native artifact recovered from an archeological dig in the summer of 1926. Traditionally, Dr. Francis Morgan would use first and second year students to explore interesting historical sites across the state to give them some experience with actual field conditions. That year he decided to excavate the area …
Jul 03 2014
Quick And Dirty Alien Artifact
A friend of mine is having an “Area 51” themed Halloween party and asked if I would be willing to come up with some decorations. He already had an awesome prop of a grey alien in a cryochamber from last year (created from a cylindrical Coca-Cola ice cooler he salvaged from a local convenience store) …
May 06 2014
The Finger of Nephren-Ka
I’ve been working on this particular project for a while, which is a bit embarrassing. In theory this is a trivially easy prop- a mummified finger. What made it so time consuming is that I wanted to do it with old school gaff techniques while making it realistic enough to meet modern presentation standards. Part …
Jan 14 2014
Unknown Specimen
This is a followup to the Mongolian Death Worm gaff back in May. The basic idea behind this series of projects is to create a sideshow-style gaff using techniques and materials that would have been available in the early 20th century. For this one I used the same materials as before- paper, flour, glue, and …