Trading tips for dark displays and prop production.
#98573
The results are amazing as usual! :wink:
Love how the sign came out on the haunted house entrance, very nice, and the 2 ghosts on the side look amazing.
The photo spot turned out great too, I love the finishing touch with the bones and skulls on the ground, fantastic!
Can't wait to see more :wink:
#98743
Thanks everybody! This year was great. I didn't really do much (compared to previous years.) My wife really pulled her weight this year and we were able to put together a "new" look and party feel.

As promised, some more pictures:

Here is the stage picture with better lighting. For the party we turned off the room lights and just left those side lights on. There was one light right behind the big sign and it cast an awesome shadow with the draping fabric
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and add ghosts
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the pictures of us from the photo spot:
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I've been editing the pictures of party goers. I'm adding ghosts here and there. Here are a couple:
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Here's the group photo for this year:
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these two girls weren't even at the party ... creepy
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:P


This year's new cookie was a stained glass pumpkin. We also had a graveyard cupcake and ghost chips to match the theme.
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Some other cool pictures:

my oldest daughter and I
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Is this your baby?
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Trying to get people's attention and say something
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Eyeballs, anyone? Step right up and be served ... ::evil laughter::
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A little lunch shopping before the party. Just your average Sunday in Japan.
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By shaft28
#98749
How much fun does that party look. Love the ghostly pictures, truly fantastic.
#98780
I'll mop floors, i'll gut pumpkins, i'll clear up, i'll wash up, i'll do anything just let me come to your party next year!!! Actually, I say party but I'd love to be there making all your walls and signs with you. Every year you top yourself with new designs. The skulls come to life with those teeth and shading around the eyes. Gang of real cool characters right there.
Thank you so much Mark for sharing your work with us all. And thanks in advance for sharing the cookies... :wink: :wink: :wink: :love:
User avatar
By mesmark
#98864
monstermash wrote:
Sun Nov 05, 2017 10:17 am
I'll mop floors, i'll gut pumpkins, i'll clear up, i'll wash up, i'll do anything just let me come to your party next year!!! ...
You are of course, always invited. I'll set you up with an under-the-table English teaching gig and you can stay for a couple months! 8)

Thanks for all of the nice comments. This is such a fun place to share our Halloween and I'm constantly inspired by your comments and by everyone else's Halloween efforts.

I finally loaded a couple haunted house walk-through videos. I took one with the lights off but my video camera battery light was blinking and I got nervous about not getting the whole things, so I sort of ran through too quickly. here it is:


A friend of mine took a video with the lights on. With the lights on, it definitely loses something but you can see all of the stuff, so it was nice of him to do that.



Now I just have to put together the post for my school homepage and start thinking about next year's party :pirate:
#99084
Maybe I'm a dork, but I love seeing the planning process for Halloween props as much as the final product. The preliminary sketches, schematics and notes... great insight into the process, and a testament to the care and commitment to doing things right.

These displays show what's possible with a little creativity and common supplies like fabric and foam. As always, I love those foam cutout props. After layering to create depth, and then painting, you almost can't even tell what they're made of. I always say I'm going to make some props with these material... maybe this will be the year.

With the size of your latest Halloween sign, I get that storage can become an issue. Have you tried any tricks to split them into smaller parts that you can puzzle-piece back together? You could use parts of the design to hide the seams. For example... maybe there's a spider hanging right at the center of the sign, and that spider's silk thread hides the split line where the halves connect.

Good job documenting the process, and final outcome in the photos and walk through video. I recognize a lot of your props that you made for past Halloweens. I bet that takes a little pressure off, as time goes on, because you have more objects that you can mix and match to fill the space.

Kudos to the wife and kids for their help in making this magic too. I love the idea of the old ghost family haunting the place. The photos with the transparency effect are fun (and spooky!). Real white contacts for the whole family? How did everyone like wearing those?

Also, I got a laugh out of the photo in the grocery store while in costume. I always try do that at some point. Even if I don't really need to buy anything, I'll run a couple errands before my Halloween party just so I can freak out shoppers and employees with my costume. :lol:
User avatar
By mesmark
#99332
Ryan, I like the process as well. It's fun for me to flip through pictures starting with design sketches, then step 1, 2, paint and bam! some sort of fun prop. When, I show people the full set of photos, they start to understand why I start working on Halloween in July :)

Most of the time, storage isn't a big issue. Last year was the first time I made something that was too big to store. I was trying to think of a way to have it break apart into pieces for storing, but I gave up. Partly because I didn't have time. I might pop the skulls off and see if I can add them flat to the sign. That would make it a little easier to store. But if not, I'll just use the skulls as decorations and try to reuse the sign foam in another prop.

I really should have made my Frankenstein machine something that would breakdown into pieces. That's the prop that I miss the most :( but even if I had it, I probably wouldn't have much use for it most years.

Yes. Having all of this stuff now makes it a lot easier to fill a room for a Halloween party. Over the last few years I've been trying to keep the props and backdrops universal. And I've slowly been throwing away older stuff that I never use anymore. But, I want to create a new look each year. So, that's getting harder and hard as I rely on many of the old decorations. This ghost theme worked out better than I had imagined. The big sign drew enough attention that people may not have noticed that everything else was just stuff from before. Most of the time they don't even notice the decorations anyway. They're just there for the cookies and snacks. :P