Random crap with Uno.

[Unorthodox]

My anti-halloween neighbors come over to compliment me on it, even. 

"You finally started making some *REAL* art." 

uh, thanks? 

[Buster's Uncle]

I guess a left-handed compliment is better than a rude gesture with the right.

[Unorthodox]

Alright, it was too windy to get in a good fog test, but I managed a little lighting stuff before the thunderstorm rolled in. 

(stupid auto focus..)

Little test with a blue flood and a dimmed green flood.



Reshot with a little tea light and manual focus.



We're definitely going to want some of that warm lighting.  Has anyone had much experience with real candles?  Specifically those drippy candle thingies? 





I so love the pleurant...

[Buster's Uncle]

That is mighty fine-lookin', sir.

Experience as in lighting with? 

[Unorthodox]

It was more a question for the Halloween forum, I just copied my post over here cause I'm lazy like that. 

More a how long to they stay lit and how wind resistant are they, will they ruin the paint, etc. 

Yeah, I can make fake candles but they will look...fake.

I've never made any attempt to hide how Temple of Doom has influenced me, and I WANT THESE CANDLES.

(sorry for quality looking for better, jump to ~5:30)

Indiana Jones drinks blood of Kali Ma

[Buster's Uncle]

Siiigh.  My &^%$#@! computer is messed up lately, and just ate the second long post I tried to make in as many days.  You'd have loved the story about the Massive Head Wound Ken candles.

...

If you're talking about the the drippy wax bases, try faking it with hot glue.  The stuff was practically invented for theater techs to fake that sort of thing, they use it so much.

[Unorthodox]

Yeah, that's how I made my last fake "candle" in 2008.





I spent quite a bit of research into how the wax should look...





My concern is more with the flame.  I can't do fake "flicker" flame candles as they are known to trigger epilepsy episodes, and that won't do with the school.  That leaves constant on or real flame.  How to match up the fake wax to real wax realisticly is problematic.  Plus I've had some rather poor luck with real candles staying lit of late.  I'd have to find a quality brand. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Hmm, yeah; I couldn't believe the technique wasn't familiar.

Perhaps you could build enough of the underlying structure and really wax in the rest?  I imagine you have to re-coat the thing every season, but if you bought your wax by the big slab and made your own candles from the same, that'd solve the matching problem.  Candle making isn't rocket science...

[Unorthodox]

I don't know if I mentioned over here, but one of our biggest projects this year was digging out a new garden bed, over 1000 sq feet of space, our goal was to become 100% self-sufficient for Halloween.  That means I need to be able to grow 100+ pumpkins myself, and enough corn stalks to decorate. 

Well, by the time the work was done it was late in the planting season and most places were sold out of pumpkins, and my goal was to focus on specialty varieties to provide some contrast this year, and test the new drip line irrigation we installed, having no experience with such things.  Mistakes were made with the garden.  I'm not sold on the drip line.  Next year, we're planting the three sisters method with pumpkin varieties that will not cross polinate so I can even save my own seeds.  That said, we're doing a lot better than I expected THIS year.

Our Lumina/Cinderella patch. 



Our Cinderellas actually were not doing well at all until the luminas overgrew them and shaded them a bit, then they took off like mad.  They also are planting secondary roots EVERYWHERE along their runners.  Rather interesting.

Cinderella on the right, Lumina on the left.



We've had dozens of each not set on the vines, and have dozens more that are presently fertilized, but not set yet. 

First Lumina to set.



First Cinderella.





The volunteer patch out of the composting pumpkin guts from last year is slowly consuming the scarecrow.



Some hybrid variety, can't place.



I believe this is a howden or howden big.  First one to set, monster. 



The anchor that pulled the vine off the scarecrow.



Hybrid of Old Zeb's and something else.  No idea, but cool bicolor, hope it sets. 



The corn. 

[Unorthodox]

Talia helping me with knocking out the rest of our tombstones last weekend




Unfortunately that's the last of work I've been able to do so far.  Family issues are crazy right now.  Unlike the taller ones (which are our names in the alphabet of the Magi), these ones are gibberish.  Or at least I think so.  I built templates of all the letters and Talia handed them at random to me,  so I could etch them with acetone.

[Buster's Uncle]

What're they for?

[Unorthodox]

The whole back yard will be nothing but the stones and Trevor.

PERHAPS some actors, assuming folks come through on promises.  I need to come up with some SIMPLE costumes for these potential helpers...


Anyway, the tomb's been giving me some technical troubles as a fog chiller. 

Chillers, in general, are designed to broadcast low lying fog in a particular direction.  NO ONE had attempted an OMNIdirectional version before like I am with Trevor.  The theory I had was that a simple circular ceiling diffuser at the end of the pipe would solve the problem, after all it was working great as a directional chiller, I just wanted to divert the flow a little....

Well, that murdered my airflow, rendering the thing useless. 

Inline fan was either too expensive or too small to do the job. 

Well, I got the problem licked, finally.  It's not elegant, but it works.  Replaced the diffuser with a larger fan. 



There is some concern this may be too much fan, but it has a slower speed if I need it. 


I have a new, large, and expensive fog machine on backorder, so we'll have a full on, ice in the chiller, test run when that arrives. 

[Unorthodox]

Well, who woulda thunk it?

Since the lighting test pics above went online, 17 copycat tombs have cropped up around the Halloween forum.  I'm betting there's a retail version out by next year. 

Bonus being only one other is attempting a transi so far. 

[Green1]

I hear you about folks hating on you for not planting weeds from other countries in your yard and calling it "landscaping" and not obsessing over it. Also, the halloween stuff, they may not understand. But, hell, you are having more fun than they are.

Now I live in New Orleans, so all this stuff is not weird but commonplace, even though many folks like that have since moved away from the ignorance and humidity here to better places since. But, there is a story I would like to share about condescending nieghbors.

In my hometown of Jackson, MS, there are groups of old, bitter trophy wives who gossip and take credit for gorgeous lawns even though they sit in AC at the country clubhouse sipping mimosas and letting the lower class Mexicans and Blacks do all the actual work for a pittance. One of thier idols was Felder Rushing, a columnist in the garden column of that city's major newspaper. Now Felder loved the readership, but hated appearances with these crazed ladies who would turn allergic if they actually sullied hands in actual soil. So, one year, just to make a statement, he painted his whole lawn with biodegradable non toxic pink paint! It washed away first rain, but you bet those stuck up old biddies where crapping bricks!

[Unorthodox]

So...decided to go ahead and post this.  I do a lot of little experiments.  Some work, some don't.  I usually wait to see if it's going to work before posting.

I'm not even sure if I want to use such a thing, to be honest. 

We planted corn this year and as I was there cooking it tonight, I looked over at the husks...




....and said to myself, I wonder what I could make with that?


Well, I got a good start, but reached a point where the glue needed to dry. 







Not sure where I'm going with this at all.  Head?  Skull?  More?  Nothing?  who knows.  More to come when the glue dries and I can fiddle some more.