Column Pop Up

I used this last year but didn't take any pictures of it. The top of one of my fence columns is hinged with an air cylinder attached that lets it pop open as people walk by. It is controlled by a switch board that I use to control three other pneumatic props that I have. I think my favorite thing about this prop is that when the lid is going back down, it makes a long creaking sound, much like you might think a big door would sound in a haunted house. The lid takes a couple of seconds to close, which I think is perfect. It doesn't make any other noise other than the hissing sound from the air line, and it is simply a skull with a green light shining on it.

Sitting. Waiting.

I hope to post a few "teaser" pictures leading up to Halloween. I probably won't be able to wait that long to post the ones that show everything. So far, I have everything about 3/4 the way of being set up, but I'll probably be out every day changing things around. I had about twenty or so people/ cars stopping in front of our house yesterday looking, so that was kind of exciting.

Updated Props

Wanted to post a couple of pictures of some updates I made to a couple of props. I re-painted and made a new head for my scarecrow, I'm still not 100% happy with the head or the positioning of it, I'll probably work on that a little more later. I also want to put a light inside the head sometime soon and I am going to put something new on the sign that it holds. I repainted my columns using a natural sea sponge and an airbrush for detailing, I was pretty happy with the way they turned out but think I may have made them too dark. I thought they were too light before, they might look pretty good once they are lit up at night.

Got some work done today.

Today I painted some tombstones, re-painted my fence columns, and gave my scarecrow a makeover. I think everything came out better than I expected it to and I am very happy with all of the work I got done. Well, everything except for my scarecrows new head... it's not exactly like I want it, but it's close. I used the airbrush a lot today and really had fun with that, it really made the columns and scarecrow look better than they would have otherwise. I'll try to get some pictures posted soon, when I tried earlier today, the up-loader didn't seem to want to work. Right now I'm headed back down to the garage to finish painting some tombstones.

I think I am going to start setting up some things tomorrow, it's a little earlier than I had planned, but I'm too excited... plus it will free up some room in the garage so I can work on some other stuff.