As I have found out many times.  When it is cold paint doesn't bond right.  Having problems painting my 20 dollar project.  The teeth have been a real pain.  It just doens't look right.  I was able to use the vines I bought from Grapegrl.  It looks really cool.  Better than I thought. I am even going to use the moss that she sent.  Thanks Grapegrl!   Well, I guess my plan for tonight is to run out to the garage with rosie and spray paint her really quick and then run back to the house.  LOL.  Sometimes it is nice outside other times the wind really whips through you.  Chicago really sucks this part of year.  It could be 40 degs out one day, -20 the next.  Which that is what it feels like today.

Update: On Slaughter House.

I just wanted to show you where I got the idea for the spikes for the Slaughter house.  We have an RF chamber which uses these foam shaped spikes.  I thought it would be a great spike for my slaughterhouse.  Of course they don't have none to give me.  So, I have to make this from scratch.

So, I got a lot done today.  I even did a little painting.  I just need to get the pod done a little more.  Here is a picture.

The Unpleasant Street contest is only a few weeks away, and I am not close at being done.  Everything takes so long to get done  I just got done with making the 2nd mouth, and I have been painting a little.  It took me all this morning to get the body in the position that I wanted. All I can do is cross my fingures and hope things go well.

It has been some time ago that I have talked to John of Pumpkinrot.  He wished me Merry Christmas in December and even responded to an email I sent a while ago showing him the progress of my new Pumpkinrot scarecrow.  But even then his response sounded automated.  John has always been the one to take the time to answer an email or two.   So you may wonder where I am going with this.  Well, a few weeks ago I started getting emails and pms from people asking “what’s up with Pumpkinrot?”  John apparently wasn’t answering any of emails.  I didn’t really know what to say to everyone.  I had not talked to John in a while, so all I could say is email him again.  I can’t image John with a chip on his shoulder.  Curiosity finally got the better of me, and I had to find out for myself.  I sent John an email showing him my prop that I had been making for Unpleasant Street $20 prop challenge and asked him a few question about his new scarecrow that he was making.  Well, I never got a response back from John.  Not through my email anyway.  I checked his website the next day, in the brewing section.  My mouth about dropped when I saw a banner showing, “And the new scarecrow’s name is Blight.”  It seemed like a slap to the face, like I was not good enough to receive an email.  Like he had gotten so many emails that instead of answering directly, he did it by way of his website.  At the time, I didn’t take it this personally, but your know me.  I had to find out if this was just paranoia.  So, after I went to Transworld and took some nice picture I might add, I sent John another email showing him the location of where the pictures were.  I thought, “There is just no way he can’t respond to this.  No way!”  He had told me before that he would have like to have gone to Transworld but that he was just to anti-sociable.  Well, now I brought Transworld to him, he couldn’t just ignore me again.  To which he did.  I didn’t hear a peep from John.  Nothing.  So, my questions is, “what has happened to John from Pumpkinrot.”  Has the pressures of producing so many awesome props year after year finally done him in?  Will there be a year without a Pumpkinrot?  Or will he just drift away like the Montreal Expose?  It would be hard to image life without a Pumpkinrot.  But I don’t think he is gone totally.  I was buying the Halloween-L DVDs and I noticed Pumpkinrot was on the list for receiving them and also listed as one of the videos on the DVD.  But what ever happens, I will always be a fan of Pumpkinrot.

www.transbuddha.com has a cute scary type video that you might like to see.  I saw it this morning and I thought it was kind of cool.  Check it out.

Graveyard Jamboree

I did a couple of things to the Devil's Rose last night.  I added LEDs to the eys and I paper mache the body.  I am not really liking the body too much.  It needs something, like a kick to the butt or something.  Time to get back to work.  Oh, and I added the Devil's Rose to my upcoming on my site.  Man, I hope this turns out ok.  To get myself in the mood, I made a banner for The Devil's Rose.  I only have till the 31st of March to submit my prop to Unpleasant Street forum.  I am starting to feel the presure.

I almost forgot.  I have been working more on the slaughterhouse design at work.  It is starting to look nice.  I will have to show you a pic of it later.

Update:  Slaughter house Picture - just first design

Today I found a good price on a sump pump plastic pipe.  It cost 2.49 for 10 feet.  All I needed was 3 feet.  Go figure.  But it works really good for what I needed it to do.  Here is a pic of The Devil's Rose as of today.  Not as exciting news as I had yesterday, but it will do.

Transworld was a blast.  Awesome.  I can’t say enough about it.  I went on Sat March 11, 2006 and the place was rocking.  When my wife and I got there it was kind of convoluted since we didn’t know where to begin.  So we just went into the room with the biggest sign.  The thing that scared me was that they had a sign that said no cameras or videos allowed, so I wasn’t going to take pictures.  And when I did it was really quick.  But then I saw all theses other guys taking pictures, so I though, what the hell me too.  One of the first things we checked out were the playmates.  Oh, my God.  I didn’t get any pictures because of the sign and all, but one gave me a deck of dirty playing cards.  Awesome.  We next check the main floor for the costumes.  If you ever needed a costume, this is the place.  They even had an adult costume show, which was around 2pm.  We watched that for only a few mins.  I also got to meet Midnight Syndicate and bought a T-shirt and coffee mug.  We next went to the 2^nd floor where all the animated props were.  Some really nice stuff.  I also got to meet Marylyn from ACC.  That is the place where I buy all my skulls. I bought about 6 skulls from ACC.   Then I went to Creative Visions and bought one of their DVDs called Lifecasting. I will have to watch that and tell you how it goes.  Then we went into what I call the dark room.  This room was hosted by ScareFactory.  It was the most eye-popping room there.  One of the first things you will see is the headless horseman.  Someone told me that sells for around 15k.  That is ½ as much as my truck.  Then they have the horse pull hearse and then they have a huge haunted house.  You really have to see this in person to appreciate it.  My favorite is the corner of the house where they have these spinning souls.  Man I wanted that so bad.   To the left of that is a big huge 6-armed creature that you got to see.  I have pictures.  The link is below if you would like to see.

ScareFactory Haunted house - spinning souls

http://photobucket.com/albums/y260/lovermonkey/Transworld/

Well, I was able to get a shot of the head tonight.  It still needs a little drying, but here is the Devil's Rose that I have been working on.  This again is for my 20 dollar challenge.  I just need to clean it up a bit and add the body and paint and I should be done.  I hope.  LOL

I did a little more work on the face of my 20 dollar challege.  I still have the head to get done and the body.  I was looking at Home Depot for a body today, but the price was a little more than I wanted to pay.  It was more of those drier pipes.  I am going to have to check out other options.

Update after the update:  I was able to get the back of the head on.  It now looks some what like an alien.  I think I kinda like it.

Last night I had a night off from doing prop work.  My boss took us all out to the Chicago Bull’s game.  The Bulls were playing Cleveland, and we had our own sky box.   I have a crappy picture from my phone that you can see.  It was a really good game, but we lost 92 to 91 at the finial seconds of the game.  Maybe now it will start getting warmer, so I can do some stuff outside.

I worked more on the Devil’s Rose last night.  I paper mache the front part of the face and I painted the eyes a little.  To give it that evil look.  It is starting to look like it has character. Of course the puppy didn't like me painting and when I went to get a soda, she took my paint brush.  The paint brush is now in a million pieces.  Oh, well, I have more..     I also made the back part of the head with a balloon.  Not really sure how the back of the head will look like, but I hoping to fine out in a few days once it is dry.  Just to show you the difference of when I started, here is that pic again.

I got to work a little more on my new project called the Devil’s Rose.  I am hoping to that I can use this for my $20 dollar challenge but I might use the pumpkinrot instead.  But, this is the head as of today.

You can remember the mask that I bought from Death Studios a while back.  I have been working on my $20 dollar challege prop when I thought about the slaughterhouse a bit.  I found a good stand for the head.  I just need to alter the stand just a little bit and the guy is ready.

Last weekend, I bought a new flash website software.  I got it from Koolmoves. Which is nice if you really don’t know about flash.  It gives you a little feel for it and helps produce some nice flash sites.  I certainly think that flash is the way to go.  Soon Internet websites will be 3d interactive sites.  It could happen.   LOL.  I have been building up both my Christmas and Halloween sites with this flash program.  But I had some help on my Halloween site from Dr. Morbius and his son.  I would like to send out a big thank you to both of them.(Dr. Morbius' website)  The good Dr. recorded his son’s voice and digitalizes it to sound like a small ghostly child’s voice saying “DeathTouch Horrors.”  I then animated a child’s statue picture that I found on the Internet.  The statue will open its eyes and look side to side and say “DeathTouch Horrors” in that awesome ghostly child voice.  You have to hear it.  Goto www.deathtouchhorrors.com after the initial screen you will be treated to this animated statue.  IF you run you mouse over it, the animation will repeat.  If you get a chance, send Dr. Morbius an email and tell him you liked the audio track from his son.  Oh, and if you have time check out the flash I did to my Christmas site.  www.thechristmaskennel.com

My wife has been getting into the Halloween spirit.  She has started on a babyrot.  It is a smaller version of the famous pumpkinrot you have seen at www.pumpkinrot.com.  Of course, it won’t be cute.  LOL.  I also got my wife and a relative of hers to come with me to the Halloween Transworld.  That happens in the beginning of March.  Which I can’t wait.  My wife is planning on stealing my Unpleasant Street T-shirt, I guess I will wear my Halloweenforum to Transworld.  I did get to wear it once.  Picture below.

Oh, on March 2^nd my boss is taking everyone out to a Bulls game.  We get our own party room.  Whooaoa.  Party on Bill and Ted.

This weekend was really laid back.  I did a few things but not really.  You know what I mean.  I worked on the backbone again.  You are probably thinking that I should have the backbone ready, but problems have caused me to redo the backbone 3 times.  I am hoping that 3^rd time is a charm.

I have also been testing the flexible foam that my friend gave me.  This is the foam that I plan to use on the slaughterhouse.  I wondered how it takes paint and what it does when you melt it.  It takes paint really well and when you melt it, the texture looks like a crumbling wall.  Which really might look nice.  I will have more time to mess with it during the warm months.

I think it is time to unreveal my super secret prop.  Picture below.  It will be called the slaughterhouse.  The top part will spin around with chains and all.  You may have seen the picture from the video game Warcraft III.  Construction of the slaughterhouse won’t be until it gets warmer, but to give you a heads up I have picture of what it might look like.  But, you know me.  I will add something to it.  Which I did.  If you remember the Death Studio’s mask I bought, he will reside inside the slaughterhouse; moving his head from side to side.  I might change this but as of right now this will do.  Now I really can’t wait for Halloween now.

This may be non-Halloween related but I just found out that our secretary form work won a contest from “Good Morning America.”  There are 300 women that won the cruise from GMA by writing an Essay on what their friends do for fun, I guess.   Our secretary, Sharon Haynes and friends, sent in an Essay on their metal pan band from Aurora, Illinois.  All four women are going on the cruise during this week.  You can check on the status of their trip from the GMA website. 

Congratulations Sharon.  Bring me back a shirt or a shark tooth.  LOL.  Goto Girls Week out..  http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/

I just got my Transworld Passes today.  Now I am ready for the big props now.  I need to save some money before I go.

I got the backbone a little closer at being done today.  This is more like the ruff draft than being done.  Still has to be sanded and cleaned up a bit, not to metion the latex.  But this is what it looks like today.  Also, I started on the head this afternoon.  It was glued together and is in my garage.