2012- Day 21- Chandelier update

Corpse arms complete with collars. We will have to add the chain links to the collars in the next few days for the final installation!

We're working on putting together the pieces finally! The arms are done. You can see a couple of them here holding the candles. It is possible, Ghouls, to bend the fingers into a fist once the latex and painting are totally done. You might have to add a drop or 2 of glue to hold the candle in there depending on how the fingers can bend around it. Now you might have to touch up some paint around the knuckles after positioning the fingers but I think I will do that once the chandelier is actually hung. The collars are easily screwed into the forearms with a single screw after predrilling. You can see how they effectively hide the connection between the hand and forearm like I mentioned earlier! Two additional challenges if you wind up doing this. One is how to connect the arms to the hexagonal base which you can see toward the upper right of the image. I decided to overengineer the construction to increase the durability by first routing into the wood a depth of maybe an inch or so, then gluing a short pvc segment into it. This way I can screw the arms into the pvc as well as glue them into the base. The original design by Merlin has an additional collar on the other end as well as the wrist. My arms had to be much shorter because of space and I wanted people to be able to see the forearm detail so I left out the additional collar. The other design consideration is the electrical wiring. I bought the candles already wired, so these paired wires (one positive, one negative) can be fed through the pvc from the base of the hand out the end of the forearm pretty easily. You don't need an extra conduit to stick in there.

2012- Day 23- The Vortex returns!

Vortex under construction. This will be its third year in operation!

Roof of the canopy assembled. Notice the black duct tape reinforcing the connections. This is a must if you are going to use a structure like this!

For the 3rd year now we start the vortex build right around Columbus Day! So here we go. We always start with the canopy. Actually I should say "I" always start with the canopy. I have by now perfected the one man assembly process, although I did get some help getting some of the materials out, particularly the wheel carriages! One thing that really helped was duct taping the connections on the canopy segments. They are pretty light weight but have proven very durable for this weather.After all it did survive the ' nightmare before Christmas' last halloween! Remember the 'feet' of the canopy were extended with additional pvc pipe to increase the height a couple of feet. Please refer to the 'spinning tunnel' page on the right for all of the vortex details.  The first year I had to spend a lot of time reconnecting a couple of the roof segments that kept sliding apart. The tape has solved that problem. Today I put together almost 2 of the hoops. It's supposed to be dry most of this week here so it should be done by week's end.

2012- Day 25- Corpse arms road show

Completed corpse hands and forearms. Don't worry about the apparent hand to forearm width difference. The collars will hide those transitions!

I have to work on the road this weekend and here at an old colonial inn in New England. This place could easily be a haunt. It would be perfect! Huge rooms with 30 foot ceilings and hardly any sunlight coming in here. Very few people here. Lots of empty space. At any rate I decided to bring the materials I'm using for the corpse chandelier. Today the rest of the latexing was finished for the hands and forearms. I had to shorten the forearms from Merlin's original design because I don't have as much space in the mansion hall. The hand to forearm transition will be hidden by the collars which I did paint but have not yet attached here, so you will not see the edge of the pvc against the hand like you do here. Tomorrow I will paint the extremities a nutmeg brown color. One thing I found was that in order to make the forearms look more realistic they have to be  a little wider at the base. I used the cotton balls but also added tissue wrapped around the base to hold the cotton in place after applying the latex. You can then use a toothpic or pencil etc to draw in the tendons and tissue planes

2012-Day 26 Latexed corpse hands

Corpse hands after latex application

Now we're starting to see something! This definitely works. You take some cotton balls, break them up and use them in combination with the latex to produce what you see here. Lots of fun! Although as I mentioned earlier, it does take time. Give yourself at least a half hour per hand. The latex takes a couple of days to dry. While it's drying you can pinch the surface and do some molding to create wrinkles.  Get a quart of the latex here. That should be enough. Merlin says in his directions (see last post) you can use carpet latex. I would get the real stuff. I don't think it will cost you any more. Looks better and cleans up with water very easily. Next we will do the forearms and paint. Monday is a holiday and we should be starting to put the canopy up for the vortex. More work planned for the mansion hallway as well. Have fun Ghouls! Getting down to the wire now!

2012-Day 29 Corpse chandelier update

One of the 6 corpse hands which will  be connected to the chandelier base

The final October schedule is under way. Corpse chandelier must be hung and entrance hall done by the 15th! As I mentioned in an earlier post I found this prop idea on the Monster page of Halloween project links.  Please bookmark this page Ghouls! There is a ton of cool stuff on there and there isn't any reason you necessarily have to reinvent the wheel as it were! Be forewarned this prop is taking a lot longer than advertised! Fairly cheap to make not including the candles, but a LOT longer than a couple of hours. Give it at least a couple of weeks. The hand shown here probably took about an hour by itself. The directions are clear enough. They can be found here. Thank you Merlin! When you make them be sure to familiarize yourself with a hand skeleton and understand there are multiple bones. Four segments for each except the thumb which has 3. The longest segment is at the bottom called the metacarpal. The rest are called phalanges. Notice the relative lengths of the individual digits and how the long finger (3rd finger) is the longest, index and ring are approximately the same length and small finger (fifth) is the shortest. Model your hands after your own. That's the easiest way to get the lengths right! You can get the bic pens at a dollar store for a couple dollars.Remove the pen portion, then cut the plastic tubes to match the lengths of the finger segments like you see here or in Merlin's tutorial. Take pieces of wire hanger and slide the segments over it. Use a 1-2 inch by 4-5 inch PVC piping to install the fingers onto. I used a hammer to flatten one end of the PVC. You don't have to crush the end totally. Just flatten it enough so you can drill 5 holes across the top. Start with the thumb hole on the side about 1" down from the end and use about a 1/8" drill bit, then drill the other 4 holes across the top about 1/2" from the end. You want the thumb hole set down and on the side a bit. Attach the digits by sliding the end of the wire into the holes. You can bend the end of the wire inside the PVC to stabilize the digit in the rough position you want. Then take your duct tape to secure them. If you are running wire through the arms make sure to leave an opening in the end of the PVC by the palm of the hand. Don't close it off with the tape. I have to wait and see if I am going to need an actual conduit to get the wire through the arm to the center of the chandelier. I don't think so. Finally if you plan to have the hands hold the candles you should cut the tape in the webspace between the thumb abd the index because you will need to bend that thumb way down eventually.

2012- Day 38- Pepper's ghost test

Moving peppers ghost test showing actor on the cart being pushed from behind

Finally we finished the lighting and lightproofing and did a rudimentary test. I have a diagram of the set-up below. When people come out of the elevator they will see the amber lit vacuform panel backdrop at which point a spooky blue light turns on to reveal the 'ghost'. This actor will stand on a cart that is pushed by someone behind it. This will create the moving ghost effect. I first tested it with a prop fixed to the top of the cart to see if the projection is right.I then tested it with the help of my 2 sons. Unfortunately they are too tall for the job! However I did see enough to determine that the effect does work. The lighting is appropriate and the view from the elevator will be the correct vantage point. There are the other logistical challenges which include the moving panel that goes right into the ghost chamber. This is intended to be used to change the set when people go into and then come out of the elevator. It will take much practice to get it to work smoothly!

Diagram of the peppers ghost moving set-up

Static peppers ghost illusion showing the amber lit vacuform panel and superimposed on that is the image of the ghoul head prop created by the illusion as illustrated above

2012-Day 46

About 6 1/2 weeks to go. Time is flying! But again, thankfully we have most of the build done from last year. Today we worked on lightproofing the pepper's ghost area. Remember to use FLAT black sheeting, not the shiny stuff! As you may recall we are going to attempt a moving pepper's ghost illusion. We have the cart already built. It has about I would say 6 feet of travel. We have a small area behind the cart for someone to push it forward. See this post for a review. I think the most time consuming part of this was building a track for the cart. You can't just have it slide on concrete between 2 barriers. You actually have to build tracks for the wheels. Once we did that it rolled totally smoothly. You can use regular caster wheels that swivel. This is probably better than fixed wheels because they can still work well if the track is slightly misaligned. The next challenge of course is both timing and lighting. We also need to install sound. I hope to have some images next week of the finished product!