We have been published!

We wrote an article for Haunted Attraction Magazine that came out this month. We submitted an article about how we made our Cathedral Facade. Looks pretty good.

PDF Version

Busy work weekend

We rolled up or sleaves and dug into the remaining halloween projects this weekend. We had a bunch of helpers come by and give us a hand. Thanks to Joe, Macy, Preston, and Max. We had our normal crew here for once and even Jason came over on Sunday.

Got 3 mud man frames made and got 2 of them mudded.

We mudded the mausoleum columns using sheets. We are hoping this makes them more sturdy and last through the weather.

Finished the 2nd cathedral frieze for the alcoves. This one is a guard standing with a spear.

Finished the new stand for the bust and a tall and monument and a large grave marker. The monument is going to have an urn on top that we had to make a lid for.

Did a bunch of detail work on the hearse. Got the trim made for around the roof. Finished covering the driver section. Made and painted the brass rails. We also found a great materil for the banding around the wheels. We used some of that flexible garden edging. Ripped it down to 2" and cut it to fit round and glued it. Looks great and is lightweight.

Back from Ashland

After talking with Mort and the Baron of Darkwing Manor in Phoenix, OR at FrightFest Northwest this July we decided to come to Ashland and stay with them and work on a few halloween effects and see a few plays and drink some wine over the Labor day weekend.

We had a great time in Ashland this past weekend. We drove down on Thursday afternoon and got to the Darkwing Manor B&B (ok not a real B&B but home to our halloween friends the Baron and Baroness Tim and Tina Reuwsaat) at dinner time. They treated us to Tamales from a local store. We rushed off to see Gem of the Ocean at OSF and afterwards snuck back to their place to crash from a long day of driving.

We got up Friday and had no plans. Turned out Tina (Mort) went to work but Tim only worked until 10ish. Tina had left us some apple coffee cake for breakfast. Since Tim was home we filmed him doing his speech. Latter Missy came over with her Ghost costume and we filmed her too. I created a couple of videos on my laptop and after some technical difficulties we created 2 DVD's. We went to the Black Sheep Pub and met Jason and Becky for drinks that evening. We snuck back to their place late again.

Saturday morning Tim made cornmeal pancakes. We went to Pascal Winery with Jason and Becky and met Linda and David there. We did some tasting, bought some wine, and hung out on the patio with a bottle. Everyone went to a play but we stopped at the store to pick up cheese, bread etc and went back to Darkwing to work on video editing. Turns out Mort didn't like Tim's speech so we re-taped it and created a newer DVD. We had Jason, Becky, Linda, and David over and we all hung out on the patio and had wine and food until late. Mort baked a duch apple pie (my favorite and one of the best I have ever eaten). Becky was determined to stay up till 3am but at midnight all the wine she had thought otherwise and it was off to the motel with her.

Sunday Tim made scrambled eggs with cheese and I even ate some leftover apple pie. We went to Wiesingers Winery and did a bit more tasting (hair of the dog as they say). We bought a bottle and had some snacks on the deck. We all went into town and we saw Distracted (a play about dealing with a child with AHDD and how to treat him). After the play we hung around town and then went to dinner at the local brewery where Tim and Tina joined us. We all went to Taming of the Shrew in the outdoor theater and had a great time. We went out for drinks later and Jason and Becky stayed until they closed with us. We snuck back to Darkwing pretty late.

Monday we slept in a bit. We had an Egg dish that Mort made with some fresh berries. Jason and Becky came over to get a tour of the Morguetorium and then we went to Jacksonville for lunch and to shop around. We headed back to Darkwing to pack our things and drive home. We ended up getting back around 9pm. Chris took tuesday off so we could catch up on stuff at home.

What a trip. 3 plays, 5 days, 2 Halloween video effects, 10 people, 12 bottles of wine (ok maybe more?). It was a blast. And to think we weren't even going to return to Ashland in September this year.

It's hard not to laugh (..or hiss..or run away)

Our Mason kitten (well, if you can call 11 lbs at 7 months old a kitten) had to have surgery on his eyes today. He came home sporting a spiffy cone around his head!

All of his everyday tasks, including eating, drinking, walking and sleeping, have all become a source of amusement. (thunk, thunk...)

It makes eating and drinking ...difficult, or funny, depending on your point of view. I do believe he has pushed a dish of food from one end of the kitchen to another....he might have gotten 3 bites!

Dorie, his sister believes he is an alien....she hisses and growls at him and Hal won't go near him.(Can cats have self esteem issues.....if so, he is going to need therapy after this!)

It does not end there....watching him try to sleep on Jeff''s lap is sad and funny - I am sure he will get some sleep when he finally passes out from exhaustion.

He hasn't tried the stairs yet, that should be fun!

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?