Thread: Haunt Build: The Myth of Jack of the Lantern: Racing to the Deadline

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Long story short, the family decided they didn't want to deal with ToTs again so they've booted my yearly haunt. It sucks. I'm sad but not shocked. These are the people who routinely threw out everything I made after Halloween for the first four years of the haunt.

The big problem is that the new yard I get to base my operations in is gigantic. It's literally twice as big and all usable space. I only just started on prop making because the family said I could run it again out of their yard this year and then move it. Liars.

I had it scheduled to get everything done, build some extra props to sell on the side, and do maintenance on the other two yard haunts.

So now I have under 3 months and a budget set up to only cover four or five major props for a smaller yard to now do up a gigantic yard.

This is the size we're talking about, people:



Forgive the Christmas shot. My Halloween full yard shots are way too dark to get a sense of it.

So the theme is the myth of Jack of the Lantern. The big centerpiece is a large plywood tree with the devil in the branches being held against his will by Jack, standing below. That's just about set. I have to make another head like this one:



and build up the body. I'm thinking just a basic PVC armature and old clothes. I was going to do a modified pose-able skeleton but that's out because of the new time and budget constraints.

The normal theme for this yard is a pumpkin patch/classic Americana thing. I can smash those together. It means a lot more pumpkins and water bottle lanterns, a lot of fallen tree branches to slam into the yard, more scarecrows, more critters, and a lot of empty space.

I'll be doing a bunch of trees like these with bats and snakes in them:



I'm also going to start cutting down the sundial in that picture to reuse as two big stumps for critters I can build up real quick with soda bottles, coat hangers, and papier mache.

I have these big jacks, those scarecrows (that now need a face lift), the moon/bat combo, and the wood cut-out jacks that I can darken up, and the fencing that I did account for redoing. Plus, there's an actual pumpkin patch in the front yard to take up space.



This is going to be a big challenge. Any suggestions for cheap and easy fillers for a forest environment are appreciated.

I have the basis of the first big build finished. They're going to be two large tree stumps done in papier mache. They were built off the remains of my sundial from my Jabberwocky haunt two years ago.



I ripped off the monster mud and foam topper, sliced it in half to make two sizable stumps, bent them into a more random and natural shape, and skewered some white foam on top to make the coating easier.

You can use lots of cornstalks and pumpkins.Most people will give you cornstalks if you ask.

Thanks, halloween71. I actually have corn growing in the backyard for this reason.

I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked to this week, but I had a good reason. I was finishing up my first order for a 5 pack of custom foam tombstones from my Etsy shop. I expect those to pick up with the non-home haunting crowd by mid-September.

I did get two coats of papier mache on the first stump. I'll be putting the third on tonight. It's been raining or humid and I just didn't want to deal with it.



I also finished painting my first mini monster of the season and only need to do some touch-ups on the first two papier mache pumpkin/jack combos.



Plus, I used that 25% off everything coupon at Michaels today to pick up most of the spiders I need, some new glittery jacks for the snack display, and all the toys and stickers to add into the treat bags.

I can ease up on the quantity of the build now. A show I was hired to score/arrange/conduct music for moved their performance up to the Wed/Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun immediately after Halloween. I'll be in tech rehearsal on the big night. I'll still get tons of pictures and video of the haunt, but it's going to have to be a static display for safety reasons. I just don't like the idea of the ToTs going around the props when I'm not there to fix anything that might go wrong.

I did get painting done on my first set of water bottle lanterns (there's a big shoe box filled with them). I'll be filling them with miniature glow sticks on Halloween. I just need to punch the holes at the top so I can string them up when they go in the yard.

So I lost the better part of a week of build time thanks to Hurricane Irene. I'm fortunate enough to live on just the right street to not have lost power, phone, Internet, cable, or suffer any major damage from the storm. 1/4 mile down the road and I would have lost all my Halloween decorations when a local dam gave way and flooded the streets. We call that luck.

I'm finishing up the first stump (still on the stumps? how thrilling) today. The rings are painted and the sides have their first coat of paint. I need to add a second coat for more consistent coverage, then get to work carving out the details with a fine brush and some black paint. I'll finish the sides and top with dry-brushing for a more eerie look. The taupe/brown mix on top is the level of contrast and not-quite-right style I want for the haunt.



First pass of detailing on the stump top:



First pass of detailing on the sides:

I'm at break neck haunting speed now. I just spent today turning this pile of fallen branches:



Into this pile of trees.



They will be held into the ground by 18" segments of 2" diameter PVC pipe pounded into the ground, like this, this, or this.





On Friday night, I won a big basket of goofy looking scarecrows and foil Halloween decorations at a tricky tray. Tonight, I start hot-gluing, sewing, stapling, macheing, and painting those suckers into the creatures that live in the forest.

A new creature has emerged from the forest. Meet Straw Daddy.

As you know it takes several years to build up your haunt with props unless you want to spend $$$ on store stuff. Look for stuff that you can get for free like corn stalks, pumpkins and such. Then intermingle you prop that you can get made for now and go from there. From the pics it looks like you are roll'in!

That's the problem, Nepboard. I did spend several years building up my haunt with pieces I could reuse or repurpose. Then the location was taken away three months before Halloween. That collection is not big enough for the space I have to work with. I work fast but with a theme in mind. I can get by with pumpkins this year because of the theme, but it'll be the last year that works out like that.