A Man in Motion

The order of wiper motors from Monster Guts arrived this morning (great customer service, Dean, thanks!). Lots of animated props on the menu for Halloween this year.

As I may have mentioned before, last year's goal was to add some height to my graveyard and my two obelisks I made helped out in that regard. There will be other things added, including my grave digger (finally) and my planned Cellarer who'll be carrying a monster-in-a-box.

This year's goal is to add movement. In that regard the MIB prop will cover two bases there, but I'll also be making a Cauldron Creep at the next NJ Hookerman M&T scheduled for March 17, so one of the wiper motors is spoken for. I'll have another motor on standby for some future prop I have yet to decide on.

Additionally, I've made a coffin (out of foam) that will house a skeleton that rises up as it opens the lid that runs on a vent motor. And I'm continuing on my work on a skeleton "flipper" at the NJ/PA M&T group that's on track for a March 24 meeting. We'll be welding up the rest of the pieces and working on attaching the air cylinder.

In my spare time, I've also been working on a paper mache dragon's head that I'm anticipating will be attached to a scissors hinge. The head was originally going to be a snake's head that was going to be used in the high school haunted house, but since those hopes have been cruelly dashed I'm going to repurpose it for my yard.

I'm not quite sure yet how I plan to utilize it best -- that's the way we do, right, build a prop and then figure out where it's going to go? -- but I envision it lunging suddenly out of a a dark space as the treat-or-treaters approach.

Last (at least so far) is my Grave Escape prop that I made at the last NJH M&T. That one was challenging getting the movement to look somewhat natural -- if a skeleton trying to escape from a coffin can look natural -- but I'm really happy with the way it moves thanks to some special parts manufacturing Greg (niblique71) did. Now I just need to make my groundbreaking half-coffin to complete it.

So while it does sound like this year I'm going to have shit moving all over the place, in my mind at least it will be very cohesive and should provide a few scares to the (handful) of ToTs that make it to my house. The props will be triggered as the kids approach so I'm hoping for some good startle effects this year making it a little less of a static yard display and a little more like a walk-thru haunt though I'm no where near that yet.

Coupled with additional plans for more stationary props I'm hoping for a bigger event than I've had previously. Ambitious plans, I know, and I've had big plans in the past. But this year I'm actually accomplishing a lot of the goals I set so I'm hopeful I'll achieve a good many of them this time around.