Gearing up for Halloween

I like Halloween, alot.  It's September now, and it's time to really get the Halloween preparations into hyperdrive.  I want to have a "Poets Cemetery" in my front yard.  All the great Gothic Victorian writers like Poe, Shelley, Stoker, etc...  We'll see how far I get this year.  Chimene is trying to convince me to spend Halloween in Disneyland with the Airths and the Whitings.  I'm not convinced yet.

Last year we had "The First Annual, Rexburg, Idaho Zombie Apocalypse".  We sponsored it through The Romance Theatre of which I'm a committee member.  The zombie walk was a huge success and we want to do it again.  Last year we blocked off two blocks of Main Street and had a parade and street party.  The Mayor showed up and thought it was a success and told me, "Now when you do it next year..."

Blocking that much of Main Street was too much, so with the Mayor's advice we decided to have a sidewalk only parade from Walgreens to The Romance Theatre, then turn the corner and have the street blocked off from Main to Carlson on Center for the street party.  I invited the local US Army National Guard recruiter to set up a booth and bring some soldiers with rubber M-16's to keep order among the zombies.  He's also going to bring his climbing wall and we'll give victims a head start up the wall and let the zombies climb up after and try to drag them off.  Should be fun.

I'm a theatre prop guy, so for the zombie walk I've decided to have some props.  It just so happened that the Career Beauty College went out of business and I happened to be there when the owner was and purchased several of the cosmotology heads that were left over when the students left.  With the aid of some of my sons, I have 'modified' them for the occasion.

Head #1:  I just happened to have a plastic jaw from a different project and some large, plastic, doll eyes from China.  I cut the skin off the face around one eye, cut out the other eye and replaced both of them with the doll eyes.  Then I cut a portion of the skin away from the jaw area and cut up the plastic jaw into manageable pieces and went to work.  I inserted the jaw in the proper place, cut the base off and bloodied the whole thing up.  Turned out okay.



Head #1

Head #2:  Last year at the after Halloween sale at Wal-Mart, I found a prosthetic popped out eyeball that was kind of cheesy, but it was only twenty-five cents so what the heck.  Garrett helped me with this one.  We cut the skin around the eye just smaller than the prosthetic eye, pulled the rubber up and inserted the prosthetic in place.  We glued it, cut off the base and bloodied the thing up.  This is the one I'll probably carry in the Zombie Walk.



Head #2

Head #3:  My son-in-law, Nick decided he wanted a head for the Zombie Walk as well.  He made a request for an exposed brain.  This one, I cut off the neck base, added a foam piece that looked like a vertabrae and a tube for an esophagus.  Then I cut a flap of scalp back and carved the foam inside with my Dremel tool.  I had to put a foam coating on it to harden, then I painted it.  Turned out pretty sick.  When I showed Nick, he was duly impressed.



Head #3 first view

Head #3 second view

Head #4:  Then I thought, "I wonder what would happen if I hit one with a heat gun?"



Head #4

Head #5:  My son Rhys didn't want to be left out of the club, so he and I crafted a head together.  We decided we wanted it to have half the skin ripped off and the skull exposed.  We just happened to have a foam Halloween skull left over from last year.  I painted the teeth with white nail polish last year.  First we cut off the skin and scalp where we wanted the skull exposed, then we hollowed out the head a bit to make the skull fit.  Then it was just a matter of cutting the skull down, and fitting it.  It's always better to start with it too big and cut it back than it is to start too small and have to scrap it.  Once we had a fit we liked, we glued it into place.

  This isn't quite finished, we still have to cut off the base and give it a paint job.  I'll probably post a picture of it when the thing is all done.



Head #5

Heads #6,7,8:  I have three heads that I cut the eyes out of and replaced them with glow in the dark bouncy balls.  I think I'm going to make some cemetery sculptures out of them.

Did I mention I like Halloween, alot?