'08 Halloween Epilogue: The End

Here I end my well over a month long series of Halloween posts. I'm going to take a blogging break for about a week. Para Abnormal cartoons will continue daily so please visit if you haven't yet!

I've decided to keep the custom decor making creative flow going with Christmas. I'm planning on decorating a little more than our usual 2 strands of lights this year. Mainly because I believe the neighborhood thinks we're some weird cultists only into Halloween. I wanna assure them we have a less dark side.

I say goodbye to a fantastic Halloween 2008 by sharing a book written and illustrated by my Niece...

'08 Halloween Epilogue: One Last How To...

Paint a paper lantern orange. Cut out a face from black construction paper and glue on. Plug in light and Enjoy!

'08 Halloween Epilogue: The Dining Room Table

'08 Halloween Epilogue: One Month ago...

'08 Halloween Epilogue: My Niece's Mad Monster Party!

My niece Devin wanted to have a Halloween party this year. It was held at my place on the afternoon of the 31st. Click on images to enlarge. Month's back, Devin and I sat down to start planning. We searched online and flipped through catalogues for ideas...

A week before the event, she came over to help with some decorating. I taught her the ancient ways of cemetery fence installation and the arcane mysteries of hot glue...


Being her party, Devin became very demanding as to what she wanted. Her critiques were endless with no concept of time and money. I soon found a way to get her to approval...


Friday the 31st came. There was a chill in the air and leaves falling everywhere, it was a real east coast feeling Autumn day in Los Angeles. Everything was ready, except I was unable to use my coffin this year...


The guests started to arrive and the place filled up fast...


To greet the kid's...I dressed as the monster, my brother Ted was Dr. Frankenstein and Devin's dad Paul was head of security...


Ted's role soon became overall party entertainer and toy parachute de-tangler. Paul found himself the owner/operator of a graveyard day care center...


Early on there was some social awkwardness. Witches stuck to their covens, Superheros teamed up...


Princesses had their "clicks" and Jedi's kept to themselves...


That sooned changed when the games began. Here Dr. Frankenstein and the monster demonstrate the rules to "Pin the Stem on the Pumpkin"...


A scavenger hunt was held. Kid's looked for the hidden pieces of pirate Capt. "Broken Bones" and the key to his treasure chest containing the party favor bags...


No Halloween party is complete without bobbing for apples...


Everyone seemed to have a great time... kids, parents, grandparents and little zombie cheerleaders...


Even the monster made friends (although he suffered a few bruises from several unprovoked lightsaber attacks). Sadly, grouchy old man Myers broke the party up...

'08 Halloween Epilogue: Oh So Tired

I struck the yard decor today in about an hour and a half. The irony of all set design. The strike always goes fast while prep and set up takes days. With that and many other things I accomplished today... I'm beat. So, what I promised I'd post today will be tomorrow. Goodnight.

'08 Halloween Epilogue: Various Pictures

With a heavy heart I'll disassemble and pack away the decor tomorrow. I'll also be posting more than a few final Halloween Epilogues and say goodbye to the holiday. In the meantime, here are some various pictures of the yard decor this year...

'08 Halloween Epilogue: Sidewalk Spider

One small detail turned out to be a popular addition and will be back next year. We have a second tree between the sidewalk and the street in front of our house. I made a quick web and attached another large rubber spider from my stash.

At the very last minute, Halloween afternoon, I added a store bought motion sensor talking skull. He was a silly birthday gift from the Fiancee last year. I under lit the web from the yard. The sensor was flawlessly triggered with each passing visitor's shadow. He really made folks jump as he screamed "Beware!" "Don't go in!" and so on. The web was right across from the guillotine entry arch. It was a unexpected highlight. Many fun scares for something so simple.

'08 Halloween Epilogue: Graveyard by Night

In the end, I never had time to finish the graveyard as hoped. Time forced the many skeleton zombies and tombstones I wanted to be cut from the plan. As well as the tree's details and arms. I'm really happy though with the new Count Orlock and my improved pirate; Captain Wigbeard. One plus, the simple reaching bony hand grave stood out more than any other year being less overshadowed by too many props around it. Note for 2009 - at the start, there were rich deep blue gels on the Malibu lights for the figures. As I clipped more lights on the same electric line for other props, the power was spread thin and the brightness decreased on all the lights. I got rid of the deeper blue gels by Halloween night to maximize illumination.

It's a decent start. I'm looking forward to making it closer to the concept sketch next year...

'08 Halloween Epilogue: Prepare for Diabetic Coma...

Photos from Halloween are coming in from all the family. Just when I thought I've seen every cute, sweet and adorable picture possibly taken of my niece Devin, her grandparents Linda and Jim e-mailed this one.

'08 Halloween Epilogue: The Blade

I took time in the past month to improve old props such as my guillotine entry arch. Besides a much better faux old wood paint finish, I beefed up the top cross beam to look solid. Before it was just two 2" x 6" boards sandwiching the vertical legs. The blade and rope hung closer to the outside. It looked okay but not too real. I plugged the gap this year and was able to center the rope. A small detail, but it made a big difference. I also added angled supports to it's original upside down " T " feet. This was both extra security in standing and gave it a heavier more menacing look.


I'm really happy I also took extra time to re-imagine my zombie skeleton executioner...


He was given much more personality - a new face, new pose, better hands and a costume...


He didn't get as much detailing time as a few of his lawn buddies did, but it's a step forward. I've grown very fond of him in my evening strolls through the arch. He's going to be a priority project for next year and he'll look 10x better.

'08 Halloween Epilogue: Moving Eye Portrait

Halloween this year turned out to be the best ever I think. So many stories. For anyone interested, I'm going to bombard the blog with many tales of yesterday. It turned out to be such a busy and long day I started to doze off at the computer just before midnight hoping to post a final countdown entry.

Thursday night, I stayed up way too late making some last minute props for the inside. I really wanted a fun painting over our mantle for niece Devin's costume bash. Using the idea from the monster eye window project, I created a moving eye portrait...


The frame was in my stash. It came from some cheesy art print I found at Big Lot's years ago. I bought it for the great, comically ornate frame to use for just such a project. The image is a quick Photoshopped revision from a PARA ABNORMAL cartoon...


I re sized it to the frame dimensions. Not having a giant printer or time to get made into a poster, I printed in 8.5 x 11 sections. They were trimmed and spray glued to foam core, matching up the seams of course. I gave it a couple of coats of yellow tinted white glue which helped the seams slightly disappear and a give it a old world, aged varnish look.

The eyes are two ping pong ball halves glued into cut out holes, concave like the large bowl in the window eye. The pupils are two green craft crystals which gave a glint to them. The picture wire was attached lower than normal so it would hang the top away from the wall a bit, giving space for the protruding ping pong balls on back. Plus it angled the portrait nicely to look down upon Devin and her little classmates.

Going to take some good pictures of the completed yard tonight (If it stops raining). Look for those soon.