Halloween progress

We worked on a bunch of different projects this weekend.

We painted and detailed 14 new tombstones.

Created the first of 2 skeleton frieze for the alcoves.

Put together the new mudmen skull faces.

Repaired the old oblisk

Built 3 new foam monument structures. One is the new pillar for the talking head.

Made some progress on the hearse but not as much because of the other projects that got done instead.

More project status

Did a bunch of little things this weekend.

Got the roof on the Hearse and started putting the foam on the sides.

Built 3 monster mud frames. 2 with pointing arms and 1 with both arms up to hold something?

Started working on the skeleton frieze that will go in the alcoves of the Cathedral. Just 80"x36" piece of plywood with a 2" foam covering glued down around the edges. We will then carve out a space for the skeleton and then screw him to the plywood and then build up around him to make it look like he was carved out.







We also did some tombstone carving and carved a sign to add to our Davis Graveyard sign next month.

We saw Eddie Izzard!

We drove up to Seattle Sunday afternoon and saw Eddie Izzard our favorite british comedian play to a sold out crowd. Eddie is the star of the new series on FX called the Riches. You might also know him from the Oceans 11,12,13 movies.

We had a great time and afterwards had food and drinks at a neat little bar and then stayed at a little hotel right around the corner from the Seattle Rep Theater. We got up the next morning and had breakfast at a little place down the street and then headed home.

It was worth the trip!

Hearse progress

I cut some drainage pipe for the corners of the box and started working on the carriage. I laid the wheels up to it to see how it is going to look.

I Built a simple model of the hearse to give me some idea of the size and demensions.

Casting

We have been working on a project for a while to cast the front half on one of the Big Skulls we bought for several new mud men we are working on.

We covered the skull in rubber and created a plaster mold for it. We have now started casting some skulls.

We covered the jaw in dragon skin and poured a jaw but it was too expaned. We got some figerglass resin and have created a hard cover for the mold to keep it from expanding.

The Hearse

We cut out wheels out of 2" pink foam last week and Mr. Reid and worked hard at shaping them. They look pretty good.

I spent some time working on the back cabinet for the Hearse. It has a 1/4" plywood base that will be covered in 1" pink foam.

Another FFNW picture

Someone took this picture at FFNW of our graveyard setup with the ghost running on Friday night. Looks pretty good.

You can see the person that was walking around as a blur because of the long exposure. Kinda cool!

FFNW Day 4 the drive home

We dragged ourselves out of bed at way to an early hour after staying up so late the night before. Quin arrived and we rented the U-haul and drove to Champoeg park. We got there about 10:30am. We get busy packing up and were out of the park by Noon.

The door prizes were given out before we arrived. But I am sure that everyone got some great stuff since I knew what some of the stuff was.

We got home and unloaded. Again thanks to Quin for all his help. We took showers and crashed on the couch. I woke up and decided to enter some of these blogs while I could still remember what all we did.

FFNW Day 3

Our alarms go off and we fly out of bed rushing to get ready to leave so we could get there on time. We even went shopping at Safeway the night before so we were ready. It was like the scene out of Four Weddings and a Funeral (bugger, bugger, bugger). But we got there just a bit after 10am. I think Jen was amazed to see us.

We poured some expanding foam and carved and painted some tombstones for a couple of hours. Grant from Canada joined in and did a tombstone for us. It was hot and we were constantly trying to find the shade.

We found ourselves at the Pirate bar quite often. We talked to people all day and had a great time.

Of course there was the Costume ball. The Pope and Elvis came by to visit the Graveyard. We moved our video projection to the bust that we placed on the Mort and the Barons tombstone for the party.

We stayed up with the Pirates until about 12:30am but we finally had to get home so we could get up and rent the truck for the next day to load up and go home. Jen on the other hand stayed and was the life of the Party...or so we hear?

FFNW Day 2

Our plan was to do some stuff around the house and go to the store and then pack the Pickup and leave by Noon. We didn't leave until 2pm and then we were stuck in I-5 traffic and didn't show up till almost 4pm. Poor Jen was starving and worried about where we were. The good thing was we were able to update her via cell from the road.


Once we got there we hurried to get the rest of the display setup. I wanted to get the LED lights working and we had a our big sign and directional sign to setup.

Vern pulled us aside in the afternoon and asked since weed pulling duty was canceled on Saturday if we would mind having people over to our area to see some of the work we planned on doing. Which meant we had to get to the park by 10am.





That night we had the ghost running in the Crypt and even had a guest dressed in a white brides outfit with blood all over her. We created a mood for the scares of the Geo-cachers. Larry even wore a Reacher outfit that cared the daylights out of a bunch of people.








We went home about 11:30pm planning on getting up early Saturday so we could get back to demonstate stuff.

The Start of FFNW

Chris drove down early to Champoeg park to meet Vern and Sue and drop off our "stuff". She came back home around 1am. We rented the U-Haul and loaded up the truck with our stuff. Thanks to Tony and Quin for helping me out. We were able to get everything we thought we would need in the littlest truck.

After we got unloaded Quin drove the truck back to Portland. Tony stuck around and helped us setup next to "Monkey Island'. Tim and I were having a bit of a race to see who could get setup first. It wasn't really fair since there were 3 of us and only him doing his stuff (oh, Mort was directing).

Once Jen finally showed up we set up her tent and headed home that night. Our plan was to bring some more stuff back with us on Friday including food for the day.

We cut out 16 blank tombstones this weekend. We carved about 14 of them. We are taking them down to FFNW to paint and detail while we are down there.

I also poured some accents from some molds we borrowed from Tony. We were going to give some away at FFNW and use some on our tombstones.

I also corpsed a couple of Mr. Thrifty skeletons (33") and set them in my little coffins. I plan on making a cage for one of them to bring with us to FFNW.

Secret Garden Tour over

We had another successful secret garden tour for the Ardenwald Elementery school.

We had visitors all day on Saturday. We set out some tombstones in the grass and put Calvin and Hobes up so people knew who we were.

After it was over we all gathered at the New's house for pizza a wine. We drew the raffle prizes and unwound. Then, at 8pm, we went over to the Muddy Rudder to see Joe New play. It was a long day but we had a good time.