Fred – Page 4 – An Unorthodox Halloween

Banners and bones.

Earlier I had spoken of a randome photo album who had inspired me to think on something new with a rather interesting picture.

I wanted a banner of my own. Such a simple design, and so fitting, and intimidating, it was perfect for our yard. Now, while bulap is fine and all, it really doesn’t have that special level of foreboding that I personally wanted for my own banner. No, we needed something just a tad more…tribal.

So, taking the lessons of Fred into account, we covered the bulap in a layer of latex. The result come out looking something like a tanned piece of hide. Looking over my stock of wood stains, we began with a “Red Sedona”. Now, originally, this stuff gave a nice reddish tan look.

Even in darker patches, it was only faintly ‘red’ in nature. Something about sitting in the heat of the garage for a few years had tempered it to show RED. So it was, I may as well have been bathing my new banner in blood out in the back yard.

More red than I planned on, but let’s run with it, and make it look like it’s been stained in blood while we’re at it. The “Red Sedona” was followed up by some “Red Mahogany” and finally, the whole thing highlighted with some “Ebony”. The results of which very well could be mistaken for drying blood. Especially under the firelight…

Now we’ve got to make the pole, and find a nice paint to form an insignia to emblazen this thing with. I’m thinking white will look best, with how dark it turned out.

Also, we took a trip out to my parents to visit Fred. There in the driveway testing him out and trying to come up with the perfect height for him.

There I am, his kneecaps at my eye level, craning my neck to look up at his decayed visage that it struck me. What in the hell was I thinking? What’s worse, we have the ability to put him to where his feet are over my head!

Kyle wants him taller, Alec wants him shorter, Jen thinks he’s about right where he’s at. I’m at a point I want to do some tests to see how much pollution of lighting we’ll get from the torches with differing height and lighting arrangements.

Finally, I’ve started to work on a special necklace to add to my costume. Making a cast to make some beads out of my Squirrel Monkey skull.

Coming Together

Interesting 2 days.

First, I figured with this string of 100 degree days, I best make sure my little pile of decay experiment was still nice and damp, and water the gravesite for the buried version as well.

Peeling back the plastic revealed an entire new world of life and activity beneath it’s surface. I’m pretty familiar with most things that crawl, but here were species I’ld never seen before. In abundance. Fleeing from this invasion of light upon their dark world. At least 3 forms of mold were now growing on the newspaper as well.

I don’t know that this experiment will work any better than the gravesite method, but it sure is more interesting. I soaked the area again, and covered it back up. Let all those little things do their stuff. Eat them clothes! Fred needs a suitable wardrobe.

Speaking of Fred, my dad gave me a call as well. Just wanted to let me know he’s got a pole rigged up for Fred. Hasn’t tried to put it upright yet as that takes at least 2 people. I just say we’ll have to try it someday, to which I get the reply “I’ll be home Sunday!”

Ok. Guess Fred is going up Sunday! Front or back yard is now the question…While I would LOVE to have him out front, with the countdown sign for a day or two, it might just be a bit much for the neighbors this early. Poor little girl next door is still afraid of our house from last year as it stands. (Course, she has a good view of the back anyway, so that may not be able to be helped.)

So, with clothes coming along, and a pole prototype done, I just need check back in to see how my brother is coming along with finding the lighting for Fred.

Finally, we got the hut walls up and finished. As suspected, we’re having to switch directions with the roof again. Gluing the grass in place doesn’t look like it will work. Next plan is making panels to go up on the roof out of grass and duct tape.

Happy Birthday to Fred…

Hope you all had a great 4th weekend.

We drug Fred around with us the afternoon of the 4th. My dad is helping design a means of mounting Fred up how we want, and needed some measurements, so I was just going to leave him over there for dad to fiddle with.

We get to my uncle’s place (right across the street from my parents) where the family BBQ is going on and unload Fred. Of course, my Uncle Rex wants to freak some folks out, so he goes to get some wire to tie Fred to the front of his trailer. I’m standing there holding him, and 2 kids are riding their bikes. The older races past, STARING at Fred and leaving his younger brother. Who sneaks by later…crying and refusing to even glance our way. And, while it was funny at the time, that I’ve already claimed my first victim of Halloween ’08….it also has me a little worried.

I really don’t want to be bringing kids to tears of fright. Jen says, he didn’t see Fred in context, and kids would be expecting scary things on Halloween. On the other hand, the kid didn’t see Fred in context. It was just me holding Fred in full daylight. Not Fred impaled on a 10′ pole in the dark, lit by firelight with the drums going and surrounded by skulls up on poles, and a little headhunter coming out of a hut with a spear (and glow bracelets).

Of course, then there’s my little cousin who reacts by holding Fred’s hand and singing him happy birthday. So, Fred’s birthday is now officially July 4th.

Friday night, with neighbors lighting the traditional little sparklers and stuff, and me sitting on some homebrew green fire fuel that is slowly evaporating, we did our own little demonstration, and poured it all into a little soda can, lit it, then dumped it into the street to make a big puddle of green flame. This inspired the neighbors to exclaim “whoa, there’s a green fire over there!”

As much as I’ld like to get that on Halloween, as posted earlier, it’s looking less likely.

Finally, I finished off Crystal Skull design #2.

I like the carved look. All the little facets, and how they catch the light…

Skeletons, Fire, and Webs, Oh my

Fred.

Well, exactly what I thought would happen with the panty hose, did. It stains darker than I wanted. BUT…I’ve been outvoted as Jen, Kyle, and one of our babysitters like it as is.

And, Alec has been on this Skeleton OBSESSION since I hung Fred. Wearing his skeleton shirts, playing with his lego skeletons, asking to BE a skeleton, telling us we have skeletons inside us, asking about the kitten’s skeleton, TALKING TO FRED, asking if he can give Fred a lightsaber to fight, asking why Fred cannot move…

Well, suddenly, Alec most decidedly DOES NOT like Fred anymore. Poor kid asked me where Fred was. I show him to the sliding door, where Fred hangs just beyond. “No, Fred doesn’t have yucky stuff on him”. Well, he does now, son. He does now…

The darkness does give nice contrast.

And for some reason, I really like the foot here.

Still mad the head got a bit messed up when he fell…, but I guess it’s ok.

So, Fred is a success with everyone but me. And I’m picky. I’ll just have to make another one to please only me, right? Maybe next year. Maybe later. We’ll see how it goes.

Now, I gotta figure out how to impale the poor guy. And light him…

The Island King Torch got another little workout for a picture.

Island King on the left, a regular torch on the right.

I’m liking the idea of just acouple of those instead of more of the regular variety.

And, just to show it off a bit, I fired up the web gun last night and re-webbed the chair.

As said before. Even I can make decent looking webs with this thing.

If it looks a bit barren, it’s because I only used one gluestick.
The little balls are from when we cleaned it off after the first time. Would make for some great egg sacks in a dedicated spider area, rolling up small balls and sticking them in the web.

Sure to have fun playing with this stuff…

Fred.

Meet Fred.

Last time you saw Fred, he was a regular ole bucky hangin out in the garage.

He needed some air, so I built him a nice little hanging stand of his own. Yes, it’s not straight or perfect, or square, but it’s effective.

Now, see, we wanted a…rather more…well…fresh skeleton. Bare bones are not only not frightening but silly to picture all still stuck together. And, so, as with the clothes rotting, I sought out the advice from Skull and Bone’s here.

Now, we’re not finished yet. Just having finished the whole panty hose thing. (Quite fun messin with the clerk while buying those) But, I have had quite a bit of experience back in the day with latex for makeup purposes, and if you were to ask me right now to do another, I’ld probably go back to my makeup roots and use tissue paper as opposed to the panty hose. We’ll see how it all looks after the stain and stuff.

So, here’s Fred, all skinned up.

Had a major accident during this. The whole top portion became unscrewed and Fred fell down. As a result, the head is not as good as it used to be. But, the rest wasn’t impacted.

I’m a little mixed on the look of the whole chest area. We’ll see how it stains, liking the pattern myself, though.

The back ended up getting a little more ‘skin’ than I planned, but it was needed to keep the rest of the stuff in check. No complaints there.

So, it’s been a nice diversion to get back to something akin to the old makeup job I used to do. One which I was fairly decent at. Even being sent home from work one day (that’ll teach em to ask me to come in costume) for an all together too realistic bullet hole in my forehead that the customers at Burger King were losing their apetite over for some reason. Ah…I don’t regret giving that up in favor of masks that the younger kids can be shown are just masks (easy on, easy off). But, it’s nice to find something to get that same feeling of creation and style of work back.

Probably won’t see any advancement on Fred this evening as we have a scout meeting. Maybe Wednsday.