Thread: Pumpkinhead Scarecrow

Tweet

I found about 15 minutes over the weekend to add some plaster to the blades of the axe. I will sand this down and put an edge on the blade. I also added blue paper shop rags to the handle and "scrinched it up" to make it look like a tree branch. A few fake straps were added that look like they are holding the blade and handle together. One coat of stain on the handle, many more coats to come.

Okay, he has a name now. Yes, I said "he." Mickey. Why Mickey? As in Mouse, Mickey Mouse. It started last week. It was a stampede of wildlife coming into the garage and "becoming one" with my scarecrow. First it was the bird. A tiny little finch (I think) would not leave the garage, and in particular, he would not leave the scarecrow's head. It was like it wanted to nest in it's mouth or something. Strange, very strange. I opened the garage door and it still wouldn't leave. After a few hours he finally decided to leave but then the next day, I heard noises in the garage whenever I opened the door and walked in there. Little rustling sounds. I didn't see anything, just little sounds that were strange, and out of the ordinary. I thought maybe the bird was back. Then my boys said they saw a mouse run through the garage. I'm sorry, but we "don't allow" mice in our garage. That's a rule. Yuck, mice? No way! I started with a complete disinfecting of the garage. Everything was taken outside. Bleaching, scrubbing, deodorizing......etc. The next night the mice showed their appreciation for the clean garage by throwing a party. They started shredding the paper mache corpsing on the arms. Apparently the flour in the mache is very tasty, even with stain sprayed on it. I went into kill mode. Although the chewing that the mice were doing on the corpsing made it look really cool, the damage would take it's toll eventually, and there would be nothing left. Mouse traps were deployed. I was shocked with how bold those critters were. They would crawl out of the head and down through the ribs and the run into hiding in the garage, right in front of me, just a few feet away from them! There were at least 3 of them. Scurrying all over the place. Creepy! About 9 pm last night I got my first kill. I figured I'd leave it there and clean it up in the morning. Bad idea. In the morning it was gone. Trap and all! I looked around and about 10 feet away I found just the mouse head, still in the trap. Apparently the other mice had eaten the rest of him. Gross! Anyway, I found another dead one in another trap, caught only by an arm, but he was dead. I just reset all the traps for tonight, and the same as last night, I'm using paper mache for bait! Oh yeah, today was invasion of the dragon flies. While doing the lawn this morning, I turned on the fan in the garage, and later I came into the garage to witness a squadron of dragon flies, in formation, in front of the fan right next to.........you guessed it.......Mickey! What next? An alien encounter? Don't look at the photos if you don't want to see dead rodents.

Victim number 4 this morning.

Mickey has legs!!! Well, sort of. I picked up some vines from a tree from my local neighborhood Wally World. I decided not to do two individual legs and went with a shape of a torso by weaving the vines and also added some to the ribs and arns. He's basically finished now except for the axe and the LED lights in the eyes. I did install the eyes but found one LED was burnt out, strange, I didn't think that happened with LED's? The axe is completed, just needs painting and I'll pick up some LED's (and extras) this week. The picture below has some masking tape still on the LED's to protect them from the black spray paint used to help hide the wires.

Looking good.

Thanks Candee!
I picked up some metallic spray paint for Mickey's axe. It was supposed to be a shiny bronze color, at least that's what the cap color was. When I got it home and started spraying it, it was silver! I guess that's the color the blade was supposed to be. All that's left is the finishing paint and installation. I still have to install the LED lights in the head (again).

Brilliant project you have going there, it looks fantastic.
You have inspired me to attempt one of these for myself for next year, can't wait to see it finished and in his final position.

Thank you Reverend, I checked out your carvings in your albums, very impressive work, how do say it? From "across the pond?"