Vines in The Darkness

[annarchy]

Larry (or anybody),
How were the large vines made in The Darkness. Seemed as if they were garden hoses wrapped in 'something', then latex and fauxed. Any ideas?
Thanks!

[damon carson]

Try autograph foliages. Thats where they buy them.
Damon

[annarchy]

Thanks for the lead on the foliage site but I am not finding anything close.
The vines in the attraction during the 2009 tour
were not 'commercial' grade. On one spot of the vine that was ripped, it appeared to b a garden hose; and [fairly] confident it had a latex exterior. Anyone? Please?

[SAWDUST JONES]

Vines construction

I saw what you saw, they looked to me like they were water hoses wrapped with thin sheet foam (1/4" to 1/2" upholstery foam) held in place with 77 spray glue and then covered with paper towel dipped in latex. This would work fine. You could also use some burlap, jute, or cheese cloth dipped in latex to make vine parts and or texture the vines.

Use mask making latex, it has a filler in it and is stronger. Don't buy the white mold making latex, you want the natural color (yellowish) latex as it has a more paint friendly start.

You could also take twine and wrap around the sheet foam over the rope to cause variations in the foam surface, and to also make the vines appear to be twisting.

I might use some kind of rope which would be stronger and the vinyl plasticizer (which often has lead in it) in the hose wouldn't rot the latex.

Maybe mix some sawdust into the latex to texture the vine surface some.

I'd also tint the latex dark brown (use universal tints from paint store) or the darkest color you want any part of your vines to be, and then dry brush lighter colors on top of that.

Alternatively, you can tint them the lightest color of your vines, and then rub-out a darker color in the cracks. Apply paint in all the cracks and crevices and then wipe surface colors off. You can then dry brush other colors on top.

Latex and paints are available at MONSTERMAKERS.COM and other sources.

Acrylic paints don't really stick to latex at all, but if the vines are out of areas where they are going to be touched, you could use acrylic paints to paint the latex. But I'd still base color the latex so no matter what you got some color there.

[damon carson]

Ya I know you can make them. Everyone on here knows that. But then alot of people claim to know everything as well. Order the catalog they are in there. I've seen people ask this same question more than once. And its always the same answer. Autograph foliage. Buy them, make them do whatever pleases you. But your welcome anyway. Kip even sells them on his site along with weeds and other items. Im sure he gets them from Autograph as well. Go back to the website. Look under vines and bushes. Then click on garlands? But anyway it shows them 6.5' Junglevine Brown A-8406 or A-8402 7' Jungle Vine Brown. Any ?'s heres there number 1-800-659-6151. They dont really have to make anything like that anymore. Were talking the same haunted house right?! The Darkness St. Louis. Mo.
Damon

[Front Yard Fright]

I remember seeing some vines that looked like pool noodles covered in latex and some sort of fabric while on the tour last year. Part of the latex stuff had come off and a blue pool noodle was sticking out!

[Nightmare_Trance]

I believe they were hoses with a latex covering. I was acting in the first scene last year with the vines and by the end of the season they were pretty tore up. For the thicker vines it was multiple hoses strapped together.

This was on the hauntworld site.
http://www.hauntworld.com/home_haunting.cfm

[scaryguy666]

Vines

I have seen these vines with my own eyes. They are not waterhoses and pool noodles are to big around. They buy them from a company. They more then likely buy it from Autograph Foilage. Enough said.

Danny

[Allen H]

Wow, alot of rudeness over some vines and a haunter asking for help. Crazy. Danny I know you are trying to improve your image here and I appreciate that. Whenever you end a post with "enough said" it makes you sound like a dick. Im sure you dont mean to sound that way, but you did.
Maybe Autograph foliage makes their vines from garden hoses, who knows. The post ended with the words "any ideas?" so all answers are valid.

Annarchy,
I saw what you saw, I certainly saw vines that were longer than 7 1/2' which is the longest that autograph seems to sell. I was recently asked about the darkness vines by someone in a PM here is my reply.
I think they are urethane foam insulation rods.
http://www.westernloghomesupply.com/...-per-foot.html
perhaps not this exact brand but this is what they use. I took some photos of them when I did the lights on tour. I really like his vines so I checked them out. The rods come in many sizes and diameters. Once you get some of these you will see how great they are.
They had a skin on them that I think was just latex paint mixed with peatmoss for texture.
He also used some pool noodles the same way. For the really big ones, they must have hit them with a heat gun or hot wire a bit because they were not perfectly round any more and they had the same coating.
I had to do a ton of vines this year for my pumpkin patch. I took a roll of paper towels (the big brown janitor kind no preforations, just one long towel) and twisted them up using spray adhesive, the when that dried I ran them through the peat moss mix and latex paint, they were thinner, but awesome (made to look like pumpkin vines).
You didnt ask but I just saw a killer looking set of fake vines on another forum, I tagged the thread it was so good looking.
(other forum link deleted as it is against HW's policies-PM me for the link)
You didnt ask for the others but if your like me you take all the info you can get.
Good luck with them,
Allen Hopps

[spookhaven]

Weren't the vine made with garden hose, some appeared to have pipe wrap (like for insulation it's gray) and latex coating on the ones in the que line area? I looked at my pictures and that is what I saw from them.

[jakprintsHAUNT]

the foam cording that Allen posted a link to would probably work very well and is what I think you refer to as the pipe foam wrap, only those ones were a solid version of it. I think there was a combo of a lot of different stuff in there. Some looked/felt like covered garden house to me as well...which I thought was a great idea, especially if you found some nice cheap or old unusable hoses. Places like Sears replace them on warranty...im sure you might find somewhere that would give stuff like that away.

Also if you dont want to go the DIY route...Creature Corps actually has a really nice line of vines and roots that they can custom tailor for you or you can buy in parts and assemble yourself.

Mike "Pogo" Hach

[FEAR ASYLUM]

vines

I'm with Allen on this as well i too saw what he saw in the que line there was a part of the vine which had been uncovered and it was indeed green garden hose covered in laytex and peetmoss very cool awesome idea , AND DANNY be Nice boy

[scaryguy666]

I could be wrong

But I honestly think they were from Autograph Foilage. Either way they look pretty cool.

[SAWDUST JONES]

I saw the same thing...

I stood in front of this scene for a good 20 minutes and it looked like green water hoses. In some cases a couple green water hoses.

That said, I have limited exposure to water hoses, maybe 40 years, and with my 20/20 eyesight, I could have misidentified them.

Punctuating the event, someone else in line at Darkness had really bad gas and was cutting loose on a fairly regular basis. Real room clearers. Except we couldn't clear out.

Beyond that, DARKNESS was fantastic.

[SAWDUST JONES]

Autograph foliage

No offense, I went to Autograph Foliage and checked out those vines ... personally, I think you are better off making them yourself, at least the fat ones. I don't know what they charge for those vines, but if it's more than a couple bucks you might as well make your own. It's really not that difficult.

"MINIMUM:Opening order is $250.00 after discount. Reorders: $100.00. Orders under the minimum will be charged a $20.00 service fee."

If you use rope as your base you will have one continuous, strong piece and if you apply sheet foam (maybe even thin carpet foam) and run twine over that to cause variations and striations, and then paper towel and latex it ... you will likely get more for your money than buying these. I'm guessing you will spend more attention on detailing your vines than the poor Chinese or Mexican person who gets to make these vines day in day out as a career.

Autograph foliage did have a lot of other cool items and looks like a good source if their prices are reasonable.