Organized Mayhem

Related to my last post regarding the journal filled with miscellaneous haunt concepts from 1996 this post brings us forward to 2011 and my attempt at organization.

Obsessive doodling is still one of my traits but now I attempt to organize the mayhem into something constructive.

When I come up with a concept I feel is worth pursing I create a folder for the project.

The act of labeling a manila folder with the project name and stuffing it full of concept sketches, design information, templates, photos, etc. and keeping all the crap in one place is somewhat handy.

The folder concept started last year when I built “Buster Gravesley” for the Hauntforum 2010 $20 Prop Challenge because a simple manila folder became the place where everything related to the project was stored.

Currently I have about ten projects that I would like to tackle in 2011. The “Troll” folder is filling up fast with technical information, templates, concept sketches and a log of dates and hours worked on the project.

Here are a few other projects in cue:

Son of Buster: This project excites me greatly because it’s an animated sequel to “Buster Gravesley”.

The concept work is done, the technical configuration is complete and I hope to start work on S.O.B. later this week.

V.I.N.cent.: This is a project dear to my heart, a life-sized papier mache replica of the robot from the movie “The Black Hole.”

Currently I have my image references and dimensions in place and hope to start work after “Boris” is complete. A non-Halloween project that appeals to the sci-fi geek in me.

The other files contain some other Halloween 2011 surprises plus some detailed video papier mache tutorials that I hope to get produced this year.

Organizing the mayhem is a challenge but one that is paying off and will hopefully make 2011 a very productive and memorable year.

Prop Shots

Several weeks ago we spent a weekend cleaning and organizing our garage, during the process we took a few hours to photograph some of the papier mache props stored in our garage. The photo includes about 75% of the props that have been built over the past few years. Absent from the photo are zombie skulls, demon skulls, plain old regular skulls, the sentinels and 14 sets of ribs, arms and hands.

Photographing the props was fun because they were displayed in a fashion that created some interesting juxtapositions as you don’t normally see frogs mixed with pumpkins mixed with gargoyles mixed with whatever.

The whole group of props sitting in our back yard reminded me of a huge papier mache garage sale. Slapping a price tag on each piece would have probably been easier than hauling everything back into storage.

More photos here.