Thread: From garage haunt to yard haunt

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I decided to do a yard haunt this year and take a year off from the walk through. I was going to go with a pirate theme but I didn't have the funds to make it look the way I wanted. I scrapped the whole thing and started over with a graveyard scene. Not very original I know, but I had a ton of graveyard stuff in the garage already and wanted to try my hand at building headstones and monuments. Here is what I have so far.

The statues you see in the first pic are ones I made in 2009 for use is 2010, but they got put on the bench and never got used. I turned them into monuments using some scrap MDF and cardboard tubes that were previously going to be cannons for my original pirate there. The skull monument is only about 70% done in the pic. I didn't even have the top secured down in the pic, which is why it is off center a little. Since these photos were taken, I've added some more detail to everything, including dry brushing some colors on the age them a little more and throwing on some Spanish moss. I'm working on a headstone for the skull monument with my last name on it.

love it...

Got to love what gray paint can do..

Great work!

The statues were at the house I rent when I moved in and the owner said I could throw them away, so I used them as Halloween props! They sit on "Haunted Mansion"-esque pillars. You can see one of them in the background of the pic of the skull monument. That is also the same statue I took the night pic of. Gray primer and flat black paint are the cure for everything

Amazing. I'd love to do the opposite- have a big [clean] garage for a haunt and take the rest of my life off from worrying about the weather with a yard display!

The cemetary grass is always browner on the other side....!

Dan

Originally Posted by Shockwave199

Amazing. I'd love to do the opposite- have a big [clean] garage for a haunt and take the rest of my life off from worrying about the weather with a yard display!

The cemetary grass is always browner on the other side....!

Dan

I took the year off for a couple of reasons. I REALLY busted my a___ last year and added tons of computer controlled lights and sound, motion activated stuff, re-did all of the wall panels (there are 22 of them) with a new theme, added a more realistic facade, and after all that the turnout was around 120 people and we stayed open for 2 1/2 hours. The year before we had to turn people away after 10:30 because we were all shot out and ended up with over 300 people counted at the door. I did all that extra work and my turnout wasn't near enough to make it worth working on the haunt for a solid year. This year I HAVE been working on the yard haunt for a few months already, but it's at my leisure. If I'd get it in gear I could have been done with everything already. I just wanted to take it easy, plus I already had all the pieces to do a cemetary. I think I've spent around $50 this year and I don't think I need to buy anything else. My neighbor, who used to do a walk through before I moved into the neighborhood, lost all his Halloween stuff in a divorce, so I offered to let him use my entire walk through. He accepted, so our block is gonna be the place to be this year!

The other reason is I wanted to take a year off from worrying about being sued or shut down. I do my haunt at my house and it's extremely safe (smoke alarms, extinguishers, emergency exits, etc.) but I don't have the money to buy extra insureance and pull permits, so I roll the dice every year. I do live in CA, the land of litigation, and you need a permit to fart in this state. I won't have any worries this year. It's not that I'm not puting effort into my haunt this year. It will still be a cool show with my Light-O-Rama controllers and talking skulls and all that, but I just don't want to deal with my usual headaches this year, plus everyone always complains about the line. They hate waiting to get in because it takes forever. This year they have no reason to complain. You can watch the whole show from the sidewalk.

Thanks for the kind words, glad you like what I did. I know my work isn't the best compared to a lot of you, but I do what I can with stuff that otherwise would be garbage.

There are a thousand different ways to make things. Your stuff is perfectly good.
It reminded me of the movie the Haunted where the woodwork carvings and stone cherubs came to life.

The columns are made of 3/4'' MDF, no foam. They are HEAVY!!