The Stragglers

Lava Creep

There is one prop from this year that we all loved, and almost everyone had a hand in its creation, but for some reason it would not be photographed. Only one picture came out sharp and it doesn't have the fog machine going, which really brigs this prop to life. Even photoshopping in some fog doesn't quite cut it. However he came out great as a prop. So without further ado let introduce Lava Creep!



As you might imagine, Lava creep lives inside our volcano. He is about 8 feet tall and and bellows smoke from his mouth and slits in his ribcage. He stands in a stream of lava which you can see in the picture, but in real life looks very cool. It was rope lights laid out on the ground in a stream pattern, and then two layers of thin black ground cover cloth were laid over them. The criss-crossing patterns from the cloth made a weird effect where it looked like the lights were moving. The rope lights were also on a flicker circuit, so they had a cool smoldering ember look to them. Lava creep was surrounded by lost souls, who were emerging from the magma to wreck havoc on the world.


Here are some other shots of him. They show the smoke and light, but are blurry.





He used to be this guy from 2008:





HedgeBreaker


This guy was out on the hedge and got put away before I could photograph him on Halloween night. He was one of my first scratch built corpses of the year and now I hate him. I think I'll saw his arms off and cut a big section of his ribs and make then cavity smaller. I like his face though.

Walk through Video

Here is a walk thru video at night of the haunt. This should give you an idea of what it was like, and see if you can spot the prop whose photo hasn't been posted yet. (he's 8 feet tall).

Haunt Photos 2009

This is the bulk of images from Halloween Night. I need to photograph a few props that were taken down too hastily and sort thru the point &shoot pictures. Thanks for looking!

It's a Long, Hard Road...

Here is one more picture of the yard. I am almost finished editing all of the pictures. They will be up tomorrow or friday hopefully. Good old MonTiki, one of my first props I ever made, a 6 ft tall sexy hunk of Dow Blue foam.



I was just looking at my google calendar for November. It's mostly empty now. A few bills here, a couple holidays there, and eye exam follow up. It was a big relief.

Just for fun, here are the last three months. I have removed all the personal events so this is just prop making things I needed to do. Dark orange is for weeknight tasks, bright orange is for working in the garage at Patty's house. Welcome to my nightmare! By the way, I had started way back in april but it was a casual thing. Those were easy days!

Editing is Hard Work

I have been editing pictures for two days and I am almost done with the "Fancy" ones.

Here is one I like; a view of the yard from the street featuring FireBringer.



Next year I am going shot everything in sections and stitch it together into a giant high-res panorama. I would have done that this year, but I am not so sharp at 2:30am and I forgot.

Nov. 1st

Yes I know, I know, we said 2009 was the final year for Haunted Tiki Island, but all we needed was some sleep and a look at the pictures from the night before and we were all like yeah, yeah yeah!! Let's do one more year!

However, by 11 am on November 1st we had all talked it out and decided we were just being nostalgic and we really were excited to do our haunted carnival theme for next year that we all agreed on two years ago.

So we spent yesterday cleaning it all up and throwing out stuff we aren't going to use or can't store.

Good bye paper mache bugs.



Good bye Lava Creep.



Good bye Volcano.



Sorry Cauldron Creep, we left you out overnight and the wind wrecked you.



Sorry Praying Mantis, but we need to put this prop away.



Sorry Moth, these webcaster webs actually work.



(Luckily this web has no spiders so he was still alive and got free and flew away when I pulled then webs down.)