Skeleton Cage

I just couldn't resist building another cage this year. I had almost enough to make this. I made a couple of changes to the design this time. I used self-taping screws and predrilled holes. I screwed the bottom bars together to seal the bottom which I hadn't done before. I also used a slightly smaller loop at the top. Only because the piece I had left just wasn't long enough for the size we normally build them at. I also was one 6 foot piece short so I had to run out and get one to finish. I used drywall texture (orange peel) to texture the metal and then I spray painted it flat black as usual. Turned out pretty good.

Preacher

We worked on the preacher last week. He will be at the doors of the Church looking out.

We found a home for our older props

We will be setting up our older mausoleum, tombstones, and mud men at the Macy and Preston Bishop's home next weekend. We spent this weekend cleaning up the props and getting them ready for display in their yard. We made a sign for their yard and a little credit for us too. Jen did all the carving and Chris painted them.

Our updated sign

Just after we put up our sign on the 16th we added a coming soon note and the web site URL at the bottom. I put a flood light out in front of it that comes on when it gets dark so people can still read it.

The new spider

I haven't posted any pictures of the finished spider. I made a new frame for the motor and strung him up with the fishing line. I am waiting for a new motor to arrive so it has a smooth quite one.

I HAVE A HUGE SPIDER HANGING IN MY SHOP! Where is the Raid!

Gravedigger

We got the body, head, and hands for the grave digger last week. I thought I would put on the clothes I got at goodwill and see how he looks. Not bad. We purchased him from www.ghostride.com. He will be holding an lantern in one hand and a shovel in the other.

New look for the coffins

We painted the coffins grey this year instead of the old brown. Wanted to give them a more weathered look. They got drybrushed with black and turned out great!

Cathedral molding cornerstones

We finally finished the corner stones for the cathedral trim.


You can see the larger ones with the jaws for the lower trim and the smaller ones with smaller skulls for the upper trim.

Hal! What are you doing?

Hal likes to help drybrush! He also loves to sit on freshly painted beams.

New improved Angel

We improved the angle by adding realistic hands and carving the wings instead of the painted feather ones she used to have.

Our very own Burning stake

Now we have a stake for burning people on!

Note the manacles on it.

New Corpses

We finised corpsefing the bucky's and painted them today.

I HAVE CORPSES HANGING IN MY SHOP!

Cage Posts

We finished the cage posts today. I decided to put them all up and see what it looks like.

Boarded windows

We finished our boarded windows today. They are made from 1" pink foam cut into 4" strips and screwed to a simple 1x2 frame. The frame is painted black and the strips have a faux wood grain painted on them. It turned out great!

Animated Head

I got the latex head and body form for our Grave Digger this week, and spent some time working on the animatronics for the head.
I used a couple of servos, some PVC pipe and a few springs.
I'm not really happy with the way it turned out. In theory it should have worked fine and without the head the movement was pretty good. But with the head on the servos struggled with the torque of the head. I'm either going to buy high-torque servos and some brackets to epoxy them into place or I am going to scrap the whole thing and go for a pre-made pan & tilt unit.

Cage posts

Built the cage posts and installed the post holders in the ivy. We painted them black today.


I used metal brackets instead of the plywood squares shown in the picture.

Our Sign

Got our sign made and put up in the yard. Added a "Coming October 16th" sign for it. Also added the www.davisgraveyard.com sign below it. I will post another pic soon.

Davis Graveyard Sign

Chris printed out a large version of our logo and Jen carved it on a piece of foam. We painted it black and then Jen rolled on the grey. We need to build a couple of pillars for each side of it and then we can put it in the yard.

Finished mud people

The new mourner monument was painted and urethaned. We did some detail painting on the comment box guy and urethaned him and the mud-o-vision guy.

A cool Skull

Chris Reid carved a really neat skull that we are going to use for the peak of the Cathedral. I traced a skull image onto some 2" pink foam. The image is the same we are using on the stained glass circle windows.

Chris worked on carving the skull out and also made the jaw be separte. It came out wonderful!

a new Spider

Chris and Jen worked on a new spider this weekend. Just a few blocks of foam glued together and some creative foam carving and a LOT of sanding. They built a body and legs.

The Great Cathedral Setup weekend

So much for labor day weekend being a relaxing one! We all worked our butts off. The main goal was to completly setup the cathedral and take some pictures so we had some idea of what it was going to look like and how to set it up mid October.

The lumber for the scaffolding arrived Thursday. I built the uprights on Friday. Called Dad and asked him to come help me set them up on Saturday. He stuck around to install some of the panels. Jason stopped by and gave a hand for a while too. Dad eneded up staying until 6pm and then we called it a day.











Chris Reid gave a hand on Sunday and we were able to get the rest of the cathedral up except for the far left panel. Chris had to go to a picnic and we didn't have the time to figure out how to install it. We will just leave it for October.