After the unfortunate dismemberment of the hand on my lid-raiser coffin, I decided to change things up a bit and turn it into a MIB. Below you can see a test run showing the gear shape and slamming action. You may notice that the motor occasionally shuts off. This is due to the motion sensor hooked up to the power supply. (If you look closely, you can see me waving frantically, trying to get the sensor to activate.)

Since taking the video, I've upgraded the wall wart power supply with a PC power supply to give the wiper motor a little more muscle.

Well, here he is, my only other prop for the year. He turned out ok - considering how little I spent on him.

His frame is a basic PVC frame with screws in the joints to hold the pose. I made the elbows adjustable using the Bride of Articulation frame technique - it works really well by the way.

I had to prop (punny!) him up this year because I couldn't think of a way to make him stand on his own. Next year, I think that I'll try screwing some U braces to the back of his legs and anchoring him to the ground with rebar. (As usual, I didn't think of this until it was too late.)

I came across the template that I used to carve my pumpkin head. Instead of deleting it, I thought that I would share...

The image should print nicely on a single sheet of 8.5 x 11 paper.

Here is a peak at one of the few additions this year....

I found a cool looking skull book at Grimvisions and thought that my witch could use one. So instead of buying his(?), I decided to make my own.

For my first attempt, I decided to make the book out of cardboard and paper mache. It worked ok and looks good, but I think in the future I will use a real book so that I won't have the aggravation of paper mache.

The skull is just a foam skull (no jaw) that I bought at Wal-Mart. The candle is a real candle.

To tie it all together, I took some black, "blue stoneware", and white acrylic paint and colored everything to match.

The one part that I haven't done (but will), is add spider webs to give it an "untouched" look.

I took longer to work on this than I had anticipated but she is finally complete! I also had time to build her a shelf to hold her potions, books, etc.

Here are some pics of the cauldron that I made out of an old clothes dryer drum:

I'm working on my biggest Halloween project for the year, a witch stirring a cauldron. Tons of inspiration can be found here and here so I'm not going in to a huge 'how-to' for this.

This project is definitely the most complex and expensive one that I have attempted. When it's completed, it will have sound, head movement, stirring movement, fog and lights for the cauldron. Two wiper motors will provide movement and will be powered by a 450 watt computer power supply. Additionally, I plan on converting a strand of green Christmas lights from AC to DC so that my power supply will also power them.

The frame is modeled after the two examples mentioned above with few modifications. The biggest difference is that I'm using a wiper motor for the head movement. This may be a bit of overkill but it's the only motor that I have available. I still need to wrap the frame in chicken wire, clothe the witch, and attach the head and hands. I'm having trouble locating an affordable mask and hands, so that part is currently on hold.

My cauldron (not pictured), is an old clothes dryer drum. The bottom already has holes, so I shouldn't have problems mounting my wiper motor (for stirring) and feeding fog through the bottom. I've made handles out of styrofoam rings and wooden brackets to mount them. Once it's painted, I'll post a picture.

I wanted some cheap props to spice up my forest hay ride so I came up with these spiders and bats made from stuff that I found laying around in the yard. The bat is a magnolia seed pod with two magnolia leaves for wings. The spider is a pine cone with stick legs, two acorn cupules eyes and sticks for fangs. Hot glue everything together and you're done.

Wood Bats

Wood Spiders

More pictures here.

Materials

• sill seal
• 3' lathe strip (sword) / 16" lathe strip (dagger)
• flat black spray paint
• brown spray paint
• silver spray paint
• staple gun

Instructions:

The process of building a sword or a dagger are almost identical. The only difference is in the length of the blade and the hilt guard.

Make the blade:

With a saw, taper one end of the lathe strip and paint silver.

Make the hilt:

Cut two pieces of sill seal long enough to wrap around the lathe strip. Paint the sill seal black. Placing the sill seal with the ridges facing out and running perpendicular to the blade, staple the sill seal to the bottom of the blade. Your finished hilt should be approximately 5" long so you will need to cut the second piece of sill seal for the correct length.

Make a sword hilt guard:

Cut a strip of sill seal 14.5". At this point, you need to get creative depending on how you want your hilt guard to look. I wanted a 'pirate' sword, so I trimmed the sill seal to the approximate dimensions below:

Spray paint the hilt guard brown. Place the slit over the tip of the sword and push down toward the hilt. Bend the other end around to the base of the blade and staple in place.

Make a dagger hilt guard:

Cut a strip of sill seal 4.5" x 1.75". Cut a 1.5" slit in the center running the length of the strip. Spray paint the hilt guard black. Place the slit over the tip of the dagger and push down toward the hilt.

Additional pictures can be found here.

Materials

cannon

• 5' 8" - sewer pipe
• sill seal
• flat black spray paint
• frisbee
• 2" pipe
• 3" ball
• styrofoam
• wood screws
• staple gun
• fun-noodle

truck

• 2x4s
• wood screws
• 2" pipe bracket (2)
• towel and brown fabric dye (optional)

Instructions:

Build the rear of the cannon:

Cut a 1" section of 2" PVC and place it between a frisbee and a 3" ball. To secure the pieces together, drill a hole in the center of the frisbee and ball and run a threaded metal bar through everything and cap the ends with large nuts. Once everything is tightly together, spray paint the whole thing black.

Attach the rear to the cannon:

The lip of the frisbee fits perfectly over the edge of the sewer pipe. To secure it, insert four wood screws through the lip into the pipe.

Add texture to the cannon barrel:

Using the sill sealer, cut strips the circumference of the pipe and use a staple gun to hold the strips in place. The easiest way to do this is to start at the rear and work toward the open end. The contours on the open end of the pipe require customized thinner strips that you'll have to measure individually. Once the entire pipe is covered, paint the foam with black spray paint.

Build the barrel muzzle:

The default diameter of an 8" sewer pipe is, of course, 8". If you look at a real cannon, you'll notice that they have much smaller openings. To achieved this look, buy a pre-cut round piece of styrofoam that is the same circumference or larger and manually shave off the exterior until it fits snugly into the end of the sewer pipe. Cut a center hole of 3 1/2". To paint the styrofoam, use black acrylic paint and brush (don't use spray paint).

Build the truck:

The cannon truck is made from old 2x4s that I had lying around and some wood screws. Here are the basic dimensions of my truck.

Once the truck is assembled, add a 2" pipe bracket to each side and cut notches into the wood beneath them to create circular opening for the cannon 'arms'. Optionally, take some brown towels (I dyed an old white towel brown) and make cushions for your cannon to rest on. These help prevent the paint on your cannon from getting scratched.

Build the cannon 'arms':

These are built last so that they are detachable and so much about their design depended on the finished truck and cannon. Cut sections of a fun-noodle and spray paint black.

Finished cannon:

Additional pictures can be found here.

The theme for this year's party is going to be pirates so I have a lot of ideas to throw around. So far, with the help of my dad, I've built a coffin and cage (link to plans) and plan on working on a few more props in the near future.