Things are coming along nicely

MacPhantom · Post by **MacPhantom** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 10:30 pm

Forgive the self-indulgent nature of this topic, but since hardly anyone posts anything in the Yard Haunting section, I don't feel too bad about reveling in my self-absorption.

Usually when I put up my graveyard, I use pictures of the previous year to put the tombstones in sorta the same place, and most of my monsters go in the same place every year. This year, I decided to do almost nothing the same. I put up my fencing, and then put the tombstones wherever I felt like. I put my oldest skeleton reaper in the same spot he always goes, but nearly every other monster went in a new spot, and I've added two new ones so far this year.

MacPhantom · Post by **MacPhantom** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 10:38 pm

And...

adrian · Post by **adrian** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 9:49 am

WOW you're yard is coming along perfectly

i love it
our grave yard is nearly done but i haven't been able to finish decorating due to constant bad weather

jadewik · Post by **jadewik** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:35 am

Boasting? Are you kidding? This is THE place to boast about your yard haunt. =)

I really like your display. I think I like your pirate the best (but that's mostly because I'm doing pirates this year...). I think you'd have the spookiest house on the block... nay, in the neighborhood with that display!

I also love your fountain. I'd love to see a close-up photo of the head with the water running!

adrian · Post by **adrian** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 9:34 pm

i'm digging the purple glowing woman in the midst of all the red... it looks great

shanda · Post by **shanda** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 9:51 pm

Beautiful!!!
I want to post pix this year. I can never seem to get them uploaded. What am I doing wrong.

How did you get the vamp to glo! It looks like it is lit with a black light! Really Cool.

MacPhantom · Post by **MacPhantom** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:34 pm

Cheers, gang. Sucks about the weather, Adrian. I hope the second half of the month is better for you than the first half.

It's actually a lot of orange instead of red, but the camera sort of picked it up as red.

How do you do your pirates, Jadewik? Mine is just a thin costume over pvc, so when the wind blows he doesn't look that great. He kind of needs to be padded out. And I'll post some pics or a vid of the fountain when I"ve filled it and start it running.

Yep, it's a blacklight, Shanda. It's a big old honkin' 48-incher mounted vertically on one of the porch posts. Have to be careful when picking the fabric, though, cause not all white fabrics glow under blacklight. I picked out 100% cotton, which is usually a safe bet, but tested a bit first before I bought in bulk, just to make sure. When it comes to uploading pics, try shrinking them down a bit first; they may be too big. I always pop mine into Adobe Photoshop and drop 'em down to between ten and fifteen percent the original size, so they're more manageable.

Anybody have any constructive criticism to offer? Spookymufu, I'm looking in your direction...

OctoberChill · Post by **OctoberChill** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:45 pm

Dang I missed this thread. That looks amazing. Seriously. I love seeing that kind of Halloween spirit. I wept just now when I saw these pictures. Love the Kruegger.

Spookymufu · Post by **Spookymufu** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 11:49 pm

MacPhantom, glad to see this!! keep em coming!

NeverMore · Post by **NeverMore** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 3:46 am

MacPhantom wrote:Anybody have any constructive criticism to offer?

LEDs are getting cheap and come in lots of colors now. Maybe add glowing eyes to some of the props?

A hologram effect would look great with your setup, ÃƒÂ la: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT_G_5tRRTk

It's an awesome display. Scare some trick-or-treaters for me.

adrian · Post by **adrian** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 9:06 am

i can't come up with any critisism... just more to add really lol there's ALWAYS room to add lol

Andybev01 · Post by **Andybev01** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 6:37 pm

I would never have thought to put a black light under something...beautiful!!

If I had made the fountain I would set the pump on low and used a red liquid for 'blood' and only have it come out of the mouth and/or nose.

MacPhantom · Post by **MacPhantom** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 10:45 pm

The LED's are a great idea. I bought a couple of blinking LED kits a few years back that run on a 9volt, and I had put them in a few skulls, but water-proofing them was tricky, and I had to run all over the yard to turn them on and off individually (I've all my other lights on four surge protectors at three different outlets, to spread around the wattage and avoid overload). But I should work some lights into the eyes of one of the ghouls...

The blacklight is actually directly in front of the vampire, so it gets a full blast and really beams. I love your idea for red liquid, and if you have any tips for anything inexpensive that wouldn't be thicker than water or leave a residue, I'd be keen on it. The first year I did the fountain, I bought five big bottles of red food coloring to mix into the fountain water, and it gave it a great red color, but that was twenty bucks that got dumped out the next week!!

We're expecting rain and wind for the next four days, so I took some daytime pictures this afternoon. Hopefully it'll all still be standing by next week.