Tag Archives: halloween

News, Useful Sites

Last Links of Proptober

Whew! Crazy For You opened last night, so my wife and I can finally take a breath and return to normal life. I will post some pictures of the props once the show closes. I made a lot of fun items for that production: four tables (two with turned legs), 12 pink candlestick phones, a custom-sized player piano, an exploding cuckoo clock, a break-away sign, 3 benches, lots of signage and much more, not to mention tracking down all the normal everyday items and hand props they needed (did you know it’s illegal to sell deer antlers from local deer in North Carolina? Because I didn’t).

In other exciting news, I have received the electronic proofs for The Prop Building Guidebook. This is essentially an e-book showing exactly how all the text and photographs will be laid out. I have to go through every single sentence and check for typos, misprints and all other errors (such as making sure the photos have the correct captions). Once that’s done, those files go straight to the printers, and my book will be in your hands before you know it! It’s very exciting to actually see the book in it’s final form.

With that news out of the way, here are some links I’ve come across in the last week:

First, here is a nice little tutorial for making latex bladders. I’ve seen blood knives and similar effects where you store the blood in various squeeze bottles, but sometimes you need a custom-shaped bladder to fit inside; that’s where latex bladders come in handy.

Volpin Props has a new website, and it is pretty spectacular. Harrison Krix is one of the hottest independent prop makers working in replicas of video game props and other pop culture artifacts (he has also kindly provided some photographs for my book), and his website is a great showcase for his work.

The other heavy-hitter in the world of semi-professional replica prop making is Shawn Thorsson, and Make Magazine recently put together a slide show showing off his workshop.

Halloween is the time of year when many non-professionals try their hand at prop making. The American Scream is a new documentary showing the work of three “home haunters” who put together impressive haunted shows in their houses every year. The trailer looks like all kinds of wonderful.

Useful Sites

Friday Link-opolis

Hello, internet. It’s been a pretty busy couple of weeks; Crazy for You (which I am prop mastering) begins tech this weekend. It has quite a large number of elements keeping me pretty busy, so I did not have time to write a blog for this past Wednesday. But I do have some fun links I’ve come across that should fill you with proppy goodness.

Anna Warren seems to be even busier than me over at Milwaukee Rep, but she has returned to write a new blog post, and it’s a cool one. She details how she molded and cast fried chicken out of latex and foam, using real fried chicken as the model.

The flip-side of molding and casting real food to make fake food is molding an object to cast it out of an edible material. This brings up many safety concerns, as very few molding materials and mold releases are food-safe. Smooth-on has a wonderfully-illustrated tutorial for casting edible items using a food-safe silicon putty.

I have yet to catch the TV series Face Off, in which special-effects makeup artists compete in time-intensive challenges (like Project Runway for the sci-fi set), but I’ve heard good things about it. Jamie Frevale interviews Rod Maxwell, one of the contestants on the show, about his work and what it was like “performing” that work on television.

Finally, just in time for Halloween, we have this video of a CNC machine which can carve Jack-o’-lanterns:

Features

The Condensed History of Specter Studios

Congratulations to te winner of my very first contest, Shane Dreher! Though all the comments offered plenty of comic potential, his provided the most unexpected types of laughs.

I think it would be great if the two old ladies in Arsenic and Old Lace had bats to beat people with the entire play between their witty banter.

I also have some more information on Specter Studios, the company that makes the foam baseball bats which Shane just won. Eanna Holton, the Business and Operations Manager over there, sent me the (condensed) history of Specter Studios:

The current incarnation of the company began in 2004 when it was purchased by Scott Tyson And Mark Marsen. Orginally, they were looking to purchase a building to transistion from being home haunters into official devotees of all things creepy. At the time, Specter (then Spector) had both building and business. Long story short, they passed on the building and bought the company instead! There were a lot of early obstacles, not the least of which were falsified financial documents from the previous owners and though Mark and Scott had already built another strong company, it was not in either the haunt or manufacturing arenas.
There was a lot of trial and error, but Specter kept learning and growing with regard to its reach and its efficiency. In 2010, we began a new era at Specter Studios and have been hard at work with 11 of Pittsburgh’s most talented artists creating some really unique, high quality masks, costumes, and props. We have 2 full time designers who create the majority of our designs, but the floor is open for anyone within the studio to suggest ideas or even try their hand at the sculpting. A good example of that is our Opera Clown Mask. It was sculpted by Mike Pezzulo AKA GYPZY who says he hadn’t touched clay since high school! This mask quickly became, and still is, one of our most popular products! As mentioned, the 11 people who work at our studio are all artists in their own. Ranging from graphic design,music, fashion desgin, painting and drawing, to special makeup effects and circuit bending! We all feel very lucky to belong to such a motley crew.

So there you have it!  Have a happy Memorial Day weekend!

Useful Sites

It’s Friday. Take a break.

I’m in North Carolina visiting my wife and talking to her classes about being a props person (she teaches scenic design at Elon University). So enjoy the links below and have a Happy Halloween!

Still looking for Halloween decorating help? Check out the Haunter’s Digest forums and the Haunt Forum.

The Craftster forum has a good summary of the different types of resin available to the artisan.

Finally, here’s a tutorial for a cool armor mask.

Have a good weekend!

Useful Sites

Friday Box of Links

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Here are some links I’m sharing with you on this glorious Friday:

  • Time Out New York has a slideshow on the set of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which just opened here at the Public Theatre. Check out all the work that Jay, Meredith and I did with Donyale Werle and her assistants to transform the theater.
  • Stolloween is a site with an impressive array of Halloween props made entirely out of papier-mâché. It also has tutorials and process photos.
  • Courtesy of Jesse Gaffney is this article about building fewer cages and dropping more keys. Basically it sums up (much more eloquently) a lot of the reasons why I started this blog; by sharing what I do, what I know, and what I learn, I hope to help everyone reach the next level of skill so we can all create better work.
  • LUNA Commons are a collection of hundreds of thousands of historical images and items from institutions and universities from around the world. If you need a reference image of an “I Like Taft” necktie or a seventeenth-century map of the world, you can find it here.