Thread: Beyond FCG

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Finished my FCG tonight. I went the disco ball approach, and I bet when it was all said and done, it was less then $20 to throw together.

Anyhow, I am truly impressed by how simplistic this prop really is and started to think about other possibilities. So im curious if any have used the FCG system to build other animated props?

A couple ideas I had:

- <insert prop> waving
- A skeleton with a shovel digging up a grave. Shovel would move at a 45 degree up and down.
- <insert prop> head coming off, up and down. Could even figure out some sort of threaded guide so the head would go up and down but also spin around.

Let me know your ideas and would love to hear about completed ones!

Hey! I havent made an FCG yet, but have looked over many plans, and it seemes like you could do a head off/on. I mean it looks like it would work right? And congrats on your FCG-would love to see some pics!

-Haunted floating candelabra or lantern
-Floating digging shovel in graveyard (someone on the list did this one!)
-Pirate skeleton waving around sword while singing Yo Ho, A pirate's life for me.

I swear I will get pics up eventually! I got 3 other props I have been meaning to take pictures as well. FCG is super easy to build. In fact I built the entire thing this afternoon. Spent alot more time figuring out which plan I wanted to follow, then hunting down the hardware.

FYI: Amazon.com: Chauvet 5 rpm Mirror Ball Motor: Musical Instruments works great. The smallest threaded rod I could find at Home Depot was 8/32 which was slightly to big for the hole, but 2 minutes with a drill fixed that.

There was a display called "Boney Island" that made extensive use of the crank mechanism to make Blucky skeletons do all kinds of things from a shootin gallery to a full fledged band.

Here is a vid of some of the applications. I've also seen the crank mech used for large spiders with the lines attached to each leg.

YouTube - Boney Island

Oh... I love the candelabra/lantern idea!!!

ooooh... I never thought of a mirror ball motor !!!!! How could I've lived without that ????
I've just found one on ebay, running on batteries, perfect for my outdoor candelabra (thanks for the idea !!!) I LOVE CANDELABRAS (and gargoyles but i don't see the point of a spinning gargoyle...)

Wow! That boney island is great! I think I am going to have to buy a couple more motors. The dropping spider concept is pretty good, I would imagine your motor is more centralized and you have your line going out to each side. I will have to experiment a bit with how much weight and how many lines you can actually add. FCG calls for 3, I bet if you could go as far 6 lines on one crank system.

All in all, this is a really easy and cheap way to bring alot of extra to your display!

If you like Boney Island you should check out Hollywood Gothique. The guy chronicled hos trips around the L.A. area at Halloween time. there are great ideas on the sites of the places he visited and he posted videos of most of the ones he went to. It inspired me to go to 6 or 7 of them. He was pretty spot on in his description of each. It is a pretty good source of info.

On the FCG topic I have seen the head floating up and down from the body before. The guy had built his prop so that the arm of the character went up above the head so it looked like he was lifting his hat off but the head would go up too.

Boney Island was pretty much all crank mechanisms. The ferris wheel and merry go round being the exception. I actually took some video of the inner workings of a lot of the props for my own inspiration. i will have to try and find them and post them. It was probably the most festive of any of the ones I have been to.

I've been thinking of the spider idea since I built a FCG last year.and I have been trying to figure out the grave/shovel Idea since nov.But seeing it's been done does anyone have a photo video,how to that? why reinvent the wheel!As far as ideas you could do flapping wings too.The spining head one problem I could see with that would be line twist.