Tag: Propnomicon

The Edge of Time

The basics of aging paper are absurdly simple- use tea to stain the fibers and allow the sheet to dry. Like many others, I learned that method in grade school and have been using it with minor variations for decades. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it does a reasonably good job of reproducing the browning …

Continue reading

Making A Magic Potion

I wish I could think of a better title for this than “Making a Magic Potion”, since there’s blessedly little potion swilling in “Call of Cthulhu”. Putting that aside, this is a quick and easy technique for creating a swirling, iridescent liquid that looks great as a potion, bound spirit, or fuel inside the reaction …

Continue reading

Glowing Fungi

Following up on last week’s post, here’s the finished (for now) version of the glowing fungus prop. Each of the stalks is a length of foam pool noodle slashed with a razor knife and then hit with a heat gun to form the twisting, organic skin. They were then bound into a group using zip …

Continue reading

It Glows

Remember the heat treated pool noodle experiments from last year?  I’ve been fiddling around with them again, adding a string of LED lights inside the central core of the noodle.  The final prop still needs some tweaks, but the effect is pretty cool. This article originally appeared at Propnomicon. This work is licensed under a …

Continue reading

Burnt Offerings

This is why you need to use a thermometer every time you bake Sculpey. Last night I finished this specimen off and put it in my dedicated polymer clay toaster oven for a final baking.  Unfortunately, I relied on my previous temperature readings and didn’t check if there was a hot spot inside the oven.  …

Continue reading

The Reality of Things in Jars

The talented Britta Miller is no stranger to these pages. Beyond producing some choice Mythos artifacts she also happens to work in an actual museum filled with shelves of preserved biological specimens. Ms. Miller was kind enough to share some insights based on that experience. Thought I’d drop an email on the subject of Things …

Continue reading

Quick and Easy Fetal Specimen

What would a mad scientist’s lab be without some creepy preserved specimens? This project recreates the look of a diaphonized exhibit using a cheap toy dinosaur skeleton and some basic craft supplies. It’s not movie quality, but from a foot away the finished specimen looks awesome.  Not too shabby for something that costs around $2 …

Continue reading

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 …

Continue reading

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 …

Continue reading

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 …

Continue reading

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 …

Continue reading

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 …

Continue reading

Wear And Tear

Over the weekend I finished up the bottled specimens I started last week, applying collection labels and the final weathering treatment. Here’s the “critter” after it was sealed in it’s bottle with wax. After a week the isopropyl alcohol doesn’t seem to be reacting with the figure’s baked Sculpey or the acrylic paint and liquid …

Continue reading

Miskatonic University Specimen Labels

The title pretty much says it all. This is an improved sheet of labels for specimens from Miskatonic University’s Special Collections, based on the original version over here and the revised single label here. The sheet contains three 2″ by 3″ labels and one 3″ by 4″ label for larger samples and includes crop marks …

Continue reading

Bottled Nightmares

One of my best Father’s Day gifts was the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 digital camera . After spending close to a decade using the same digital camera I bought in back in 2000, a Canon Powershot A-10, the difference is like night and day. I’m finally able to take some quality shots of my props! Well, …

Continue reading

Preserved Tissue Specimen Tutorial

There’s nothing quite like a preserved bit of nastiness in a bottle. A specimen floating in murky liquid in a dirty sample jar just calls out to people.  They want to pick it up, turn it around, and take a good look at what’s inside.  The ickier it is, the better. This tutorial will show …

Continue reading

Load more

Bad Behavior has blocked 13875 access attempts in the last 7 days.