Hi All! I know I've been a bit quiet on the forums of late, that's because it's a bit of a busy time over here at the Time Wizard's lair! Halloween is coming and I need to get my house in order! I posted some shots of our decorations a couple of years ago, but they were mostly blurry night shots. So here's how our outdoor decorations are shaping up this year.

To start, one side of our front yard is transformed into a cemetary. A careful count should reveal exactly 13 tombstones! (well, one is slightly hidden)


Here's a view of the right side of the graveyard.


And here's the left side, looking towards the "crypt" I built on our porch. {Please excuse the blur - damn camera!}


The majority of the tombstones I made out of styrofoam sheets that I carved to shape. Then the lettering was carved into the "stones" with either a rotary tool or an xacto knife, depending on the font. They were then painted with my homemade "tombstone mud"!


This one was done for a bit of pun-ishment!


Anyone care to figure this one out? A pint to the first correct answer!


On the other side of the yard, in our 70 foot tree, lives our giant man-eating spider. My wife picked this up in a chain store a few years back. It's an inflatable lawn decoration. When she brought it home I thought that it should be in a web, not on a lawn. A quick trip to the local home improvement store for a couple hundred feet of rope, and a few hours and many, many knots later...our spider has a web to live in!


Inside the crypt will be my tribute to Nosferatu. The one from the silent film, not the poster on Dakka!


Behind the pedestal in front is a plastic window box. Hmmm.


That's because in the back of the prop is a plexiglass box (hand made!) and some tubing...


...that will allow "blood" to be pumped from the window box up to the plexiglass box, where it flows through holes drilled into the tombstone, and voila! The name on the front of the tombstone will drip "blood"! (pics of the front in it's glory later on, I promise!)


And this is where I fabricate all this good stuff! Here Nosferatu's tombstone pedestal is drying after a bit of a touch up.


That's about it for this installment. Have to get back to work.
Oh, by the way, what's that black pipe on the ground behind the tombstones in the front yard there for anyway?
Stay tuned! Answer to follow, same bat time, same bat channel!

you... gotta get out more i think

far far too much time on your hands!

That is a Chip off the old Block!

jlong05 wrote:That is a Chip off the old Block!

A pint to Mr. John Long!!!!

Now as to the next question, whatever is that black pipe for? Well, thought I, what's a cemetary without some knee high, thick, spooky fog, right? Just plain boring. Ah, but how to deliver such an effect? Well after much trial and error, I fabricated a fog delivery system. The fog starts in the back of the house, travels through the pipe, and comes out looking like this;





The piping extends from the cemetary back to my deck for two reasons. First is to deter theft, I have a lot of money invested in this stuff. Second is to provide weather protection and a power source. So a rather long length of pipe was called for.



The fog machines are housed in a plain wooden box.



The reason takes about 3 paragraphs and a bit of explaining. So...WARNING! Halloween fog science to follow! Feel free to skip if uninterested.

Fog machines work by pumping a glycerin solution through a heating chamber causing it to form a dense fog. It takes them a bit of time to heat up, and as they produce fog, the heating chambers cool requiring the machine to cycle on and off. But I wanted continuous fog, so the solution was 2 fog machines with timers in tandem!



Now, this is great for indoors, but is a problem for my outdoor decorations. See when the fog is created, it is hot or at least warm to the touch. When it hits the cold air of my cemetary, it rises up into the night and disappears. But I want it to hug the ground. But if the fog were cooled, it would settle on the ground. So the solution is to run it over, under and through ice. So inside the fog box is an ice "basket" that when filled up, nicely chills the fog down!



And lastly, the fog has to be forced through the pipe. I first put a small fan in the pipe itself to push the fog through, but found that the blades of the fan chopped the fog particles resulting in reducing the fog output considerably. So my solution to this was to place a fan outside of the enclosure that put positive pressure in the box forcing the fog through the pipe to be delivered where needed. A clear example of "thinking outside the box" if I don't say so myself!



This fan was salvaged from a Christmas inflatable that had it's fabric shredded in a windstorm, but the motor and fan were still good, and have found a second life.

Talus wrote:you... gotta get out more i think

far far too much time on your hands!

Ah, but that's the thing Talus, the decorations are outside!

And you sir are responsible for an update on one of the parts of the decorations. But more on that later or tomorrow.

Thanks all for looking and listening so far. More to come!

NOT GUILTY! I DIDNT DO ANYTHING

wait

what?

Bloody hell (he swears aptly)

I've never seen anyone put so much effort into Halloween decorations!

They look great.

What do your neighbours think? I hope you are having them all round for a party

Awesome dude. Thank god you are a nice guy - anyone that focussed on a project could easily turn to world domination! Perhaps we should call you stewie from now on....

Herne wrote:Perhaps we should call you stewie from now on....

Victory is mine!!

er

His!

mattjgilbert wrote:What do your neighbours think? I hope you are having them all round for a party

The neighbors are all convinced that I am certifiable!

Other than that, we have a great neighborhood, and yes they all come round on halloween.

We have sweets for the kids, and treats for the adults.

We have wine for the wineos, tea for the totalers, beer for the lagerheads and single malt for the rest of us!

And it is a bit of work, but a labor of love. Plus it helps with my 40K terrain techniques. (albeit on a bit larger scale!)

@Herne, okay mate, you got me! What is meant by a stewie? Or am I missing something obvious? And thank you for the awesome comment! Coming from someone with your painting and modeling skills, that is indeed praise! Appreciate it!

timewizard wrote:@Herne, okay mate, you got me! What is meant by a stewie? Or am I missing something obvious? And thank you for the awesome comment! Coming from someone with your painting and modeling skills, that is indeed praise! Appreciate it!

I think he was referring to Stewie from family guy right?

Nooooo, what happened to Mort?

timewizard wrote:The neighbors are all convinced that I am certifiable!

This is to certify that TIMEWIZARD sucessfully swam 15 metres STRAIGHT DOWN.

Excellent stuff, mate!
Wot, no tombstone with "Wish you were here" on it???

ruffian4 wrote:Wot, no tombstone with "Wish you were here" on it???

Well, I do have one with "U R Next" on it!

jlong05 wrote:

timewizard wrote:@Herne, okay mate, you got me! What is meant by a stewie? Or am I missing something obvious? And thank you for the awesome comment! Coming from someone with your painting and modeling skills, that is indeed praise! Appreciate it!

I think he was referring to Stewie from family guy right?

Yup! 20 month old with plans for world domination!

timewizard wrote:Plus it helps with my 40K terrain techniques. (albeit on a bit larger scale!)

i now submit this for discussion

time wiz makes life size terrain, and we all go round his for paintballing in a 40k warzone

costumes optional

Talus wrote:i now submit this for discussion

time wiz makes life size terrain, and we all go round his for paintballing in a 40k warzone

costumes optional Uniforms Mandatory!

Fixed it for you!