Adding this post so the build videos for building the cloaked wallbreaker are available.
This video shows the repaired wallbreaker I got from a friend. Next steps are to rebuild and mount the forms
Here is the wallbreaker operating with the forms attached, and the base layer of cheese cloth attached. I like to attach small pieces with fabric stiffener, leaving plenty of voids. This adds depth to the ghost when additional cheese cloth is added.
Finally getting caught up on the blog. Halloween saw a big jump in TOTs this year, and I was also able to get a lot more set up than I have in recent years. Hopefully these trends continue. New this year are more fencing across the front, the 9 old men tombstones are complete, and 2 new ghosts. There was a pretty steady breeze Halloween night that killed the fog, and at times enhanced and challenged the ghosts. Hope you like!
Continuing the trend of cloaked ghosts, the latest is a cloaked leer ghost.
The difference in this version is that there are no strings, pulleys or eye-bolts. Instead, I used direct linkages for all the movements, which should prove much more reliable. The pictures below show the internals, followed by some videos with the linkages in action.
The reason the neck (the dowel sticking out to the right in the picture above) is not directly attached to the crank arm like the arms is to provide some counter weight. When the weight of the head is pulling the neck down, this will be helping push the arms up. Like wise, the weight of the arms when they are raised will help raise the head.
Before next Halloween, I am going to add bushings to the pivot points, as they tend to start squeaking after a while. Also, I realize the positioning of the arms was very unnatural when I was trying to mimic it. Now I realize why this leer ghost, and the prior one had such an insect/praying mantis feel to it.
Below is the video of the final Leer Ghost, followed by a series of videos that show how it was built.
I have been wanting to build a cheap cemetery fence for quit a while, and I finally got around to it. The idea was to build an 8 foot section from a 2x4. The picture below shows a single 2x4 ripped into top and bottom rails, and 4 8' pickets to cut the final pickets from.
I chose to make 3', 3'4:, 3'8" and 4' pickets. I build 5 8' sections, and 2 4' section using 6 2x4's.
Then I cast finales and post caps, since 41 finales would cost a lot to buy. I used 1:1 mix of silicon caulk and cornstarch to build molds for some small skull heads, and larger ghoul head I had picked up over the years. Since I had so many to make, I cast the skull heads in plaster. When they were set, I drilled 3/8" hole in the bottom of each, and glued in a 2" piece of 3/8" dowel. Then I dipped the whole thing in polyurethane, then painted flat black finished with a dry brushing of metallic copper acrylics. The post toppers were cast in paper mache paste, and finished the same as the skulls.
The fence posts are built from 1 1/4" PVC. 3/8" dowels glued into the end of the rails are inserted into holes in the PVC posts. Some pictures of the finished fence sections are below.
Trying to get a little earlier start this year, and it is time for some new ghosts. What better way to start then to rehabilitate a wallbreaker. I always thought it was a shame that I built the wall breaker, made the plans, built and sold kits, and then sold the one wall breaker I had. Last Halloween, a friend who built one of the first wallbreaker kits gave me it back, after it had fallen and broken. It was fairly easy to repair. I reused all the forms after stripping most of the old cheese cloth off. Some trimming and adjusting, and then it was time to dress it out in cheese cloth. I have been into cloaked ghosts lately, so I decided to make this a cloaked ghost also.
