Dungeon Rats 2009

The Dungeon Rats were finished just in time to be included in our 2009 Halloween display. Named “Riff” and “Raff” the rats are mangy, malnourished and have a nasty disposition, their overall length is five feet long from tip of the nose to the tip of their tails.

WIP: Dungeon Rats

Finishing up several new props for this year’s Halloween display which will feature several large five foot rats named “Riff” and “Raff”. The mangy and malnourished rats are made from strip and pulp papier mache and will stand guard over the entrance to the cemetery.

WIP: Pumpkins v2.0

Eight new pumpkins are in the final phases of construction, some new techniques allow for the creation of different shapes and more extruded three dimensional faces. A few of the pumpkins are quite large standing over three feet tall.

WIP: Sentinel Modifications

The Sentinel statues created last spring received some modifications including shortening and straightening in order to make them suitable to be placed on top of cemetery columns. The addition of paper towel soaked in papier mache paste added the ragged robe/cloth effect.

Space: The Final Frontier

“Where do you store all of your props?”

This question I get asked more often than not. My props are stored in our attic, our basement and our garage. It’s not pretty and it’s not perfect but somehow we’ve managed to find room for each of our papier mache creations.

Q&A: How To Make It Angry

Questions regarding my projects and papier mache regularly fill my mailbox. In an effort to answer these questions and share information some of these questions will be regularly featured on this blog.

Stephanie wrote:

“I am currently working on a tombstone. I am trying to have a 3-d skull face on the tombstone.

Now for my question--in everything I do, baseline sketches, doodles, etc...everything seems to come out happy, instead of scary, creepy or evil.

Do you have any suggestions for how to remedy this. Right now, my skull looks like a "happy redneck" :(

I understand this is your busy season, but I look forward to hearing from you! “

This has to be one of my favorite questions, in fact I’m still laughing at the concept of a “happy redneck” skull, I wish you had sent some pictures. Honestly I’m not probably the best person to answer this question but from my experience I have found that the shape and the angle of the eyes have the most dramatic impact regarding whether a character is a friend or a foe. Also pay attention to the angle of the eyebrows, position of the nose and shape of the mouth.

Here is a cool link that that allows you to change the features of a virtual face. Pay close attention to the differences between “happy” and “angry.” Note the position of the eyes and brows and also study the relationship of the nose and the mouth.

Another good reference is looking at yourself in the mirror, make different faces and note how the muscles in your face work. If you squint your eyes study how the muscles in your cheeks and mouth change. You can also spend some time studying photos on line, simply do an image search on google for “evil faces” and you will get tons of examples. Note the common characteristics of faces people consider evil and incorporate those features into your own artwork.

Hope this helps!

Children of the Corn

Found a few photos of my wife and boys from 2005 while visiting a local pumpkin farm and traversing through a large corn maze. The season is almost here. Visiting our local Halloween attractions is almost as much fun as building props….almost.