Thought I'd share them for anyone needing inspiration and label design ideas for odd, bottled concoctions this Halloween. Click on images to enlarge.
63 Days 'Til Halloween: Drugstore Antiques
There's a local drugstore near me that has a terrific display of antique remedies, ointments and medicines from bygone eras. I stopped by today and took some pics for my own prop making reference.
Thought I'd share them for anyone needing inspiration and label design ideas for odd, bottled concoctions this Halloween. Click on images to enlarge.
Thought I'd share them for anyone needing inspiration and label design ideas for odd, bottled concoctions this Halloween. Click on images to enlarge.
Creative Inspiration: What Tha? I'm 12 years Old Again!
Have you ever seen something that unexpectedly triggered a dormant part of your imagination and transported you back to being a kid? Well, this one brief video of The Avengers filming in Cleveland did it to me tonight.
If I had seen this at the peak of my comic book loving days decades back in grade school, my brain would of literally melted in my skull and poured out my ears.
I think I'll go visit a comic shop tomorrow. It's been awhile.
If I had seen this at the peak of my comic book loving days decades back in grade school, my brain would of literally melted in my skull and poured out my ears.
I think I'll go visit a comic shop tomorrow. It's been awhile.
Pumpkin Watch 2011: Linus and Sally
I realized today, it's been almost two months since I last posted about the pumpkin patch. And sadly this might be the final update. Back in early July it was lush end to end with growing vines. There were numerous buds then that seemed to have potential but only one grew into a pumpkin - a little guy I first called Jack, but have affectionately renamed Linus.
By early August, all the vines lost steam and stopped growing. Just when I thought Linus was all alone as in the Great Pumpkin story, to my surprise I discovered he had a friend hidden under a large grouping of leaves and off-shoot vines. I've named her Sally.
Today, the entire patch is spent and naturally withering. It would be a Halloween miracle if any more pumpkins appear. Linus is looking ready to harvest and Sally is catching up turning orange.
Although both are really small, they will find a place of honor sitting together as our coffee table centerpiece this October.
By early August, all the vines lost steam and stopped growing. Just when I thought Linus was all alone as in the Great Pumpkin story, to my surprise I discovered he had a friend hidden under a large grouping of leaves and off-shoot vines. I've named her Sally.
Today, the entire patch is spent and naturally withering. It would be a Halloween miracle if any more pumpkins appear. Linus is looking ready to harvest and Sally is catching up turning orange.
Although both are really small, they will find a place of honor sitting together as our coffee table centerpiece this October.
70 Days 'til Halloween: A Scarecrow For Work - Part Two
The scarecrow is done, except for a few details I'll add tomorrow. I hoped to include a "making of", but it's been a long day so I'll make that a Part Three sometime this week.
71 Days 'til Halloween: A Scarecrow For Work - Part One
We're shooting a Halloween themed interstitial for work later this week. I have to create a small kid friendly pumpkin patch set. All the set dressing has been rented (including fantastic realistic rubber pumpkins) from a local prop house and is ready to go. What's left is to make is the scarecrow which I decided to do in the comfort of my grim garage this weekend.
I'll post pics of the "making of" and finished prop later tonight in Part Two.
RISD loves LOVECRAFT
When I was a student at RISD, I was aware of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft and loosely knew the mythos he created being a fantasy and sci-fi fan. But it wasn't until years later living in Los Angeles that I actually read any of his work and discovered that Providence was Lovecraft's hometown and the setting for many of his stories - which included familiar RISD campus locations.
Thankfully, my Alma Mater no longer lets this kind of ignorance happen. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward was assigned summer reading for this year's incoming freshman. For more details click here.
My New Tenant Shows It's Face.
For the first time, my new workshop tenant hung from her web facing me. I hope you all appreciate that my camera's zoom is not this good, so I had to get pretty close for these pics... too close... and I did not enjoy it.
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| Note the eye-shine from the flash. |
77 Days 'til Halloween: Making the Cauldron Pyre - Part One
Now that the Cauldron is finished, today I started to make the pyre it will sit on boiling old Grool. I'm revising the one seen in the initial sketch. It's now going to be a decrepit stone fire pit. I want it to look like it was once pristine and perfect masonry, but the elements and hundreds of forbidden rituals have taken a toll.
Using a 36" plywood round as a base, I glued chunks of Styrofoam on with expanding foam. Then carved into wonky stone shapes using a paring knife. I have to say, I've used a lot different tools to shape bead foam in my time - hot wires, electric carving knives, box cutters, saws, grinders, etc. - but non compare to a good sharp kitchen paring knife.
After cleaning away the debris, I used a heat gun to "seal" the rough edges and shaped the foam blocks even more. I did this very quickly and wearing a respirator! The fumes are really noxious.
I always enjoy painting Styrofoam when it's supposed to look like rock. It's texture and absorption does most of the faux finishing for you. Just an initial black wash on it looked pretty good.
Because there will be a lot of black scorching and grey ash details in and around the pit, I added some olive green and tan color wash to the stones for contrast using a spray bottle. The green, especially puddling in small divots and crevices added a really cool, old growth mossy feel.
To help the pit look well used, I glued some bits of foam in between the stones as piled up embers spilling out. They were based coated black and dry brushed with a bluish grey for an ashy look.
I'm probably going to add more embers all the way around the bottom edge, but I'll do that as a finishing touch once the entire piece is done.
That's it for now. Next in Part Two - creating the faux fire itself. My hope is to make it big and bright enough that it will cast a nice glow on some surrounding props in the yard.
Using a 36" plywood round as a base, I glued chunks of Styrofoam on with expanding foam. Then carved into wonky stone shapes using a paring knife. I have to say, I've used a lot different tools to shape bead foam in my time - hot wires, electric carving knives, box cutters, saws, grinders, etc. - but non compare to a good sharp kitchen paring knife.
After cleaning away the debris, I used a heat gun to "seal" the rough edges and shaped the foam blocks even more. I did this very quickly and wearing a respirator! The fumes are really noxious.
I always enjoy painting Styrofoam when it's supposed to look like rock. It's texture and absorption does most of the faux finishing for you. Just an initial black wash on it looked pretty good.
Because there will be a lot of black scorching and grey ash details in and around the pit, I added some olive green and tan color wash to the stones for contrast using a spray bottle. The green, especially puddling in small divots and crevices added a really cool, old growth mossy feel.
To help the pit look well used, I glued some bits of foam in between the stones as piled up embers spilling out. They were based coated black and dry brushed with a bluish grey for an ashy look.
I'm probably going to add more embers all the way around the bottom edge, but I'll do that as a finishing touch once the entire piece is done.
That's it for now. Next in Part Two - creating the faux fire itself. My hope is to make it big and bright enough that it will cast a nice glow on some surrounding props in the yard.
79 Days 'til Halloween : Building a Better Cauldron - Part Two
From where I last left off in Part One, It was sanded it down and base coated, inside and out, with flat black house paint ( I removed the rings temporarily so they could be painted separately ).
I decided to give the cauldron some "character" by notching out and denting areas of the lip - as if it's been heated and cooled too many times over the centuries. Then it was painted with the faux rust treatment I use on most of my props. Once dry I splattered on some watered down orange and brown for extra weathering.
I made a "how -to" demo video of my simple rusting method. It's really basic and good for beginners (and an alternative for more advanced prop makers who find themselves money and time constrained on a project).
81 Days 'til Halloween: New Workshop Tenant
Opened up the grim garage this morning and discovered I'm now sharing space with someone. Work might be slow today constantly looking over my shoulder in paranoia. Not to mention keeping my paint brush steady getting "the willies" every 2 seconds.
82 Days 'til Halloween: Building a Better Cauldron - Part One
I was going to begin making my Zombie a Month characters for the yard with Capt. Umpkin, but I changed my mind. I'm starting with the first one sketched, November's Cauldron Zombie, who by the way, I've now named Grool.
Grool is going to be a simpler but better quality looking re-imaging of an old cauldron character from a few years ago. Back then he was a jungle explorer boiling in a cannibal's stew. He's since fallen into serious disrepair.
First, I stripped down the old prop to just the cauldron. It's the ordinary plastic type found at most stores around Halloween. I want to make it a better looking one.
I honestly really love these classic blow-molded cauldrons, they have a great shape. Unfortunately they also always look cheap and fake. Obviously a good paint job will help, but there are two things that the best faux finish could never fix that I want to change - the loosely implied handles and thin edge to the lip.
Since the lip's edge is curled inwards a bit, I realized I just had to fill it in to give it a good thick and heavy cast iron look. I used a bead of expanding foam applied underneath all the way around. Once fully dry, I carved it down with a paring knife and sanded into shape.
Next I made a thin mix of DAP Presto Patch and coated it over the foam and entire edge filling in gaps. As it dried I added a few more layers building it up to look solid.
I moved on to making handles. I used my old friend Crayola Model Magic to create the rings. I simply rolled out a long band, like making a snake, then wrapped around a roll of tape for a decent shaped circle and trimmed.
For the handle bases, I used two Styrofoam balls coated in Presto Patch and drilled holes through the center to loop the rings through.
One dry enough, I glued on top of the cauldron's original molded handles (now they look like part of the new handle's base).
That's it for now. In Part Two, the cauldron is painted, weathered and finished.
Grool is going to be a simpler but better quality looking re-imaging of an old cauldron character from a few years ago. Back then he was a jungle explorer boiling in a cannibal's stew. He's since fallen into serious disrepair.
First, I stripped down the old prop to just the cauldron. It's the ordinary plastic type found at most stores around Halloween. I want to make it a better looking one.
I honestly really love these classic blow-molded cauldrons, they have a great shape. Unfortunately they also always look cheap and fake. Obviously a good paint job will help, but there are two things that the best faux finish could never fix that I want to change - the loosely implied handles and thin edge to the lip.
Since the lip's edge is curled inwards a bit, I realized I just had to fill it in to give it a good thick and heavy cast iron look. I used a bead of expanding foam applied underneath all the way around. Once fully dry, I carved it down with a paring knife and sanded into shape.
Next I made a thin mix of DAP Presto Patch and coated it over the foam and entire edge filling in gaps. As it dried I added a few more layers building it up to look solid.
I moved on to making handles. I used my old friend Crayola Model Magic to create the rings. I simply rolled out a long band, like making a snake, then wrapped around a roll of tape for a decent shaped circle and trimmed.
For the handle bases, I used two Styrofoam balls coated in Presto Patch and drilled holes through the center to loop the rings through.
One dry enough, I glued on top of the cauldron's original molded handles (now they look like part of the new handle's base).
That's it for now. In Part Two, the cauldron is painted, weathered and finished.
84 Days 'til Halloween: Inspired to Begin
As I stepped out of the backdoor tonight with a fresh cup of coffee to get started Halloween building, there was a welcome chill in the air and a nice glow coming from the ghastly, grim garage workshop.
Change is Good: Part Four
As you can see at the top of this 'ol blog here, after much back and forth, I've finished the new banner/logo and changed the whole blog design a bit. Of course all will be tweaked here or there down the road - mainly because this has been fun to do and I want to keep playing. But I'm pretty happy with it for now and I really should move on to other things.
Next up is complete redesign of the portfolio site with the new logo. I've picked up a few web code tricks I want to try, such as image hover effects and thumbnail galleries. Once that's done, everything might be changed again here to mirror it.
Thanks again to everyone who left critiques, ideas and suggestions for this project. All were welcome and doodled, sketched or pondered numerous times working on this.
Next up is complete redesign of the portfolio site with the new logo. I've picked up a few web code tricks I want to try, such as image hover effects and thumbnail galleries. Once that's done, everything might be changed again here to mirror it.
Thanks again to everyone who left critiques, ideas and suggestions for this project. All were welcome and doodled, sketched or pondered numerous times working on this.
88 Days 'til Halloween: Portrait Preview
Well, this can be considered my first official countdown to Halloween post. Most of my spare time now will be devoted to this year's display.
A new project in the next couple of weeks will be creating a series of 5 - 8 ghoulish watercolor portraits to frame and hang inside the house. Once done, my plan is to also make them available to order as inexpensive posters and prints in standard frame sizes should anyone want to use in their own decorating this year.
More details soon, but in the meantime here's a sneak preview of one portrait on the drawing board now- Sir Vincent DeGhoul.
A new project in the next couple of weeks will be creating a series of 5 - 8 ghoulish watercolor portraits to frame and hang inside the house. Once done, my plan is to also make them available to order as inexpensive posters and prints in standard frame sizes should anyone want to use in their own decorating this year.
More details soon, but in the meantime here's a sneak preview of one portrait on the drawing board now- Sir Vincent DeGhoul.
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