Skulls – Page 4 – An Unorthodox Halloween

Witch skulls

A couple years ago, the original, original sketch of the idea for the witch’s cauldron area composed of some “demon skulls”, with magic circles in their foreheads.

Yes, the drawing is pentagrams, but I never intended something so boring as a pentagram. It’s just easy to draw for everyone to get the general idea.

From Halloween buildup 09

I even had made a horned skull back then, and sorta half-attempted to cast it with some leftover latex. Wasn’t enough latex to make a stable mold, however.

I loved the thought of the magic circles, as it hearkens the mind, even if subconsciously, to that european brand of magic. The demon skulls meant to bring to mind the post-Christianity tales of witches sleeping with demons.

Since then, however, I’ve come much more interested in the Veve. Kyle’s design was fun to do, and inspired one family to hastily make their way past Kyle whilst praying in spanish. (sorry, I’m not fluent enough to pick up which prayer it was) I

From Halloween 2008

So, when putting the finishing touches on our witch skulls, I attempted a bit of a merging of the Veve symbology with the European style magic circles.

From Halloween buildup 09

Yes, we’ve dropped the horns. Sorry, Witches of Christianity, references to that set of folklore has been abandoned entirely for more ancient versions.

From Halloween buildup 09

Got the nose looking more normal as well…

From Halloween buildup 09

If you can’t find it…

Turns out, my skulls aren’t quite big enough for this latest project idea for lighting the Witch’s area.

And, taking some measurements, I was unable to locate any for sale, either…

Well, if you can’t find it, MAKE it.

And, if I’m MAKING something, I’m going to take some liberties with it as well. I figured, if we’re passing this witch off as an ancient entity there from the dawn of time, let’s have the skulls represent that. Yet, Cro Magnan, and other skulls of antiquity were also off in the dimensions I need. (I considered buying one to cast)

So, I’ve certainly incorporated some aspects of the Cro Magnan brow into this. And, purposely have enlarged the eyes. The nose still needs some work, but I can’t until the rest of the clay is re-conditioned.

And, some details need to be added to the skull and teeth, but can’t until the thing dries a bit to allow some finer carving.

Shown next to the primary model for my skulls for reference (cast of a 21 year old Chinese female, in case anyone’s wonderdering)

From Halloween buildup 09

Plan is to finish this thing off in the next few days. Fire it mid-week, and start on a cast of it by weeks end.

Any luck, and we’ll have a prototype of the idea in a couple weeks. We can go from there.

From Halloween buildup 09

Rainy days…

What a weekend.

Friday and Saturday were decent weather, and I used them to get 3 more grave caps ready for coloring and waterproofing, and indoors before the storms hit.

Sunday and Monday brought a bunch of rain, lightning, wind, and hail.

We did go out and pick up Mercenaries 2 Sunday afternoon. Once I figure out how to get pictures of it, I’ll show that even such a seemingly devoid of inspiration title actually has some good Halloween fodder in it.

Monday morning brought a serious hail storm. Scared the cats, couldn’t even hear each other talk, but as normal around here, only lasted about 5 minutes before settling into rain and lightning.

Our sign survived the winds, and collected all the hail into a surprisingly deep pile.

And, being bound to the house due to weather, I spent a lazy day making skulls.

Just to add to this years collection waiting to be stained.

One of these days, I should pile THE ENTIRE COLLECTION of them up and see just how impressive of a stack we could make.

Grave business.

We’ve got all the Grave caps formed. It’s time to start thinking on how to finish them off. I got some ideas for that. And, we’ll get a good and proper how-to up once some are finished.

Red has won the popularity contest between the colors by a landslide. So, I gotta go get some more lights. And, since my shop vac decided to quit on me, I may as well turn it’s casing into a fog chiller.

3 more headstones also need their finish work done up now, and all of it will need some waterproofing. I think a nice, solid weekend of getting down and getting to work on this stuff is in order.

Maybe we need to throw in making some more skulls for good measure, I bet I could rip through the entire 14lb bag of plaster in a day or so, which would put us at well over 50 new skulls for the year.

There once was a pinata…

Well, the pinata distraction is over.

The Power Grab Paper Mache worked well, it seems. No reinforcement tricks to the pinata (bamboo, duct tape, etc) needed. Only 7 layers thick at the end, much thinner than the previous 2 I made of traditional glue recipes. And yet, stronger, still.

I’ll have to get a few photos of it’s carcass up as well. But, I understand it survived 32 kids whacking it with a stick and a good drop when the rope it was hanging from broke before finally being put to death by an adult wielding a baseball bat.

Yeah, I think it will be strong enough to make a few halloween decorations that wont be the target of baseball bats, just fine.

A little swap meet find, here.

While slightly damaged, and obviously aged, the horns are tremendous. I’m debating just what to do with this thing, use it as is? Try to mold it? But, similar quality goat skulls go for $65 or more from Skulls Unlimited. And, the person selling it wanted $20. I got it for $10 after offering $5, and pointing out all the aforementioned damages and aging.

On one hand, it’s a bit strange just how much I’ve come to understand about skulls, able to identify a wide range, knowing this particular goat was suffering some pathology I cannot pronounce, let alone spell, but I know what I’m seeing. On the other, knowing your stuff makes it easier to barter with people.

Crystal Skull 2 is out of it’s mold, and 90% done. It’s hollow, and I had a mind to leave it so, but it’s not catching the light quite right due to that hollow center, so I’ll fill in the center soon and get pics of it up. Wonderful mold, that one. Really like the look in crystal.

So…plans for the weekend…(no work Friday, yay!)

Name the new kitten. (VLAD THE IMPALER!!!)

Jen was on board with it till people at work had no clue what or who Vlad the Impaler was. Come on, folks…DRACULA. HOW do you NOT know DRACULA!?

I actually put forward the name in jest. Along with Frankenstein and Jeckyl (since one of the 2 vets at the place we go is Dr Hyde…)

Getting Cozette to not kill the new kitten…Bumping some skull production and maybe a little Shrunken Head action as well.

On some site news.

I’ve added a link to the Rock Bottom Cemetery in the links section.

I don’t link to many places, but Blinky kicks ass! This is THE place to go to get the lindberg skull featured in the mold making, plaster skull, and crystal skull how-to’s. There is also a lot of other interesting stuff for sale there.

Speaking of the how-to’s, I’ve also added the howto for the Crystal Skull over there, and rearranged the sidebar a bit. It was time to get rid of that Indiana Jones widget, but I accidentally removed my countdown at the same time…gotta remember how I did that…