2011 Haunted Overload progress

[elowther]

Funny thing was that house to the left, the people were huge into Christmas. They would start decorating so early it wasn't even funny. It took me til it snowed to get all my stuff down. So for two months There was one house decorated for Christmas and one for Halloween, lol!

The last straw was when my thunder machine made their cat throw up all over the house. The cat hated thunderstorms and the people went away for Halloween. They weren't happy when they returned to step in puke and I knew my days in the neighborhood were numbered.

It was all for the best but the home haunt was a lot of fun and we raised tons of money for charity. It also allowed me to grow slowly and get experience with throughput.

Eric

[chuck weber]

good thing you took lots of pictures...............

hard to believe you did that in your home. crowds looked unbelieveable !!!! I guess you had great neighbors (for the most part) who let you do your thing for charity. Onward and upward, my friend. thanks for sharing those precious photos.. un real set up !!!!!

[elowther]

Nostalgia

Yeah, the crowds got insane at the end. I can't believe I got away with it for as long as I did. The town really liked it though, the neighbors would run out of trick or treat candy in 10 minutes, lol! The home haunt was good for learning to make videos as well. This one is really rough compared to our newest one but at the time it really kicked ass. I love the crowd scene, look at how close all the houses are. Thanks to Tim Bickford for all the Haunted Overload videos to date. I still like looking at it from time to time.

I think it would be cool for someone to start a Nostalgia thread. Post photos or videos of past seasons as far back as possible. Then post one of the present day show. It could be a lot of fun to see the growth of each haunt. I loved Wayne's TW seminar when he showed really old photos of the Trail of Terror. It's great to look back and see how far each of us has come with our haunts.

Enjoy,

Eric

[Ambergris]

What may not be clear to all of you here is that Eric lives on a tiny little postage stamp of land. I joined Haunted Overload the first year that it was at Coppal House farm, so I never actually saw the home haunt set up. Every time I go to his house, I simply can't get my head around how he managed to fit all that stuff from the photos onto a plot that's just a little larger than the house itself. It certainly gave him a lot of experience in manipulating a small area into an effective haunt.

[chuck weber]

like captain lou albano used to say..............

"it was an optical illusion". never the less, an awesome set up to be sure.... ERIC, are you going to transworld or National Haunters Convention in Valley Forge, Pa ?????

[elowther]

I caught holy hell for digging my wife's shrub up so I could make the trail go all the way around the house, lol! The best thing to come out of it was the necessity to build up instead of out. I had no land to expand so I needed to figure out a way to make it cool looking in that small space. The huge monsters that are now such a part of Haunted Overload were born from that need. It looked huge when everything was up and you stood in the middle of it all. I am constantly trying to get that feeling back at the new location. More giant structures are in the works for this year, lol! I can't wait to start working on the scale models. I'll post them as they are finished.

Chuck I just saw your post. No I won't be able to make it down there unfortunately. Would love to attend someday.

Here are a few slides from last years TW seminar. They show some of the trials and tribulations of how the monsters first came to life.

[Pumpkin King]

You make it seem so easy! Thanks!

[WickedWillow]

I agree. Your pictures are awesome!

[Darksydesigns]

Great pics. The giant pumpkin man is wicked, as is the 2004 facade8-)

I can see what you mean about the one setup being unsafe, elowther

[elowther]

Pumpkin stems from pink foam.




Baby doll before and after Magic Sculpt. This is just the first step. I will use a detailing technique to add much more texture, flaking skin and character to this once the clay dries. We will have more than 100 of these in the woodland Nursery if I can round up that many. I think we have about 30 dolls now from the swap shop. Could make for a crazy looking scene between the stick house in the woods and these dolls in there.




Tom coats a pumpkin with roofing sealer.

[Twin Locusts]

For a second I thought Tom was looking at you like, "this pumpkin is stuck to my hand", then I saw the glove. Good work!

[elowther]

Working on a new home page today. Here is the rough layout. The logo and pumpkins at the bottom left will flicker. The face in the middle will fade and change to different ones. The middle photo will be sharper.



Rae's comments about the new werewolf costume revamp.

This is the initial sculpt for the new werewolf face. It's still got a long way to go, but I wanted to get some photos of where it is now. (I wish I'd thought to take one when it looked like a duck with teeth! That was hilarious.) I have to work out the musculature a bit more, and do some texturing. I know it looks a little out of proportion on the human face lifemask, but it's about the same size as the old muzzle. A lot of what you see in clay won't even be visible. (He had me build it down onto the face to give me somewhere to attach the fur.) Tomorrow I'm going to pull the mask apart and drape it on the sculpture so I can get some photos of what they'll look like together. I'll post it on the H.O. Facebook page when I've got a bit more to look at.

I thought we were just going to leave the teeth in the clay to do the mold, but Jeremy says we're going to remove them, and then after we cast it in latex, we'll be able to put them back in, which will give Samantha a lightweight face with realistic teeth. I was under the impression that they'd just be rubber along with everything else, but this will look SO much cooler.



We went cosmic bowling last night. The glow in the dark t shirts as well as Kyle's mask were a big hit.



As you can see we try and recruit only the biggest and tallest actors we can find, lol!
Facebook link to all the photos.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...1&l=db9770fedb

[Jim Warfield]

I think that's called "Cheating"

When you use a crane! Come on! I know, the magic spell book was out of date, had special pages missing, so you Had to get a crane!
People ask me "How did you get that UFO on the roof of the cupola?" (It's a 1950 Hudson car body with wings, ex cetra)
"I ruined the clutch getting it up there."
NO CRANE THOUGH! hahahaha!
Ever put the head on a swivel on top of the telephone pole so he could do alittle turning to face another direction?
Paint the back of the head flat black to night-camoflauge it, then suddenly it HAS a head! Then it doesn't?
I love mystifying some customers with the simplest things like that. (Direct ego-feeder!) hahahaha!

[elowther]

Haven't posted in a while. Here are a few more progress shots.

Tom's Old Scratch costume coming along.


Start of another creepy doll sculpt.


First coat of Monster Mud on the pumpkin hands.


Head in relation to the hands. These figures will be between 13 and 16 feet tall when finished.

[elowther]

First coat of Liquid Nails to protect the foam pumpkin.


These will be finger nails for the hands.


Another rough web page layout.