[HalloweenJock]

Ugh Boy....so I'm new here ...YIPPY!!!

I've been collecting spookytown stuff for about 3 years now and I've noticed that my collection has gotten quite large lol I'll admit...I have a problem 1 800 # anyone?

I really wanna create my own landscape for all of the rides and houses I've collected but I have no idea where to begin. I run a haunt so this year I know I won't have time to do so that's why I'd like to start sometime after christmas.

Does anyone have any suggestions or sources that I can check out on how to begin? I'm quite artsy so I know I can do it just don't know where to start with something like this. Please help!

Thanks a million,

-Peter

 

[Hoopah1972]

Foam insulation board from Home depot works awesome. You can get the pink or white and just carve it with a knife or Styrofoam carving tool. Get some brown/green spray paint and some moss from Michaels, and you can paint the foam to look like landscape and use the moss for bushed and grass. Its a really good effect, time consuming though. I had a huge Spookytown collection but had to sell it, I didn't have the time to set it all up correctly AND do a haunt.

 

[Blarghity]

Foam insulation board from Home depot works awesome. You can get the pink or white and just carve it with a knife or Styrofoam carving tool. Get some brown/green spray paint and some moss from Michaels, and you can paint the foam to look like landscape and use the moss for bushed and grass. Its a really good effect, time consuming though. I had a huge Spookytown collection but had to sell it, I didn't have the time to set it all up correctly AND do a haunt.

Did I sleep through the announcement that foam insulation stopped breaking down when sprayed with aerosols including spray paint?

Foam insulation boards are commonly available in 1, 2 and 4 inch thicknesses, but availability varies from area to area. Chunks can be glued together to create hills you can carve into shape. If you're going to stick with a particular layout for awhile, you can also glue everything to the landscaped board and store it that way, so you don't have to put a lot of time into laying everything out again each year - just put the boards in place and you're done. Just when you want to store them away, bag them up in something like those giant clear plastic lawn & leaf bags and you might want to build a basic rack to store them in, to keep them from being banged around during the off season.

 

[Chops6965]

Welcome to the forum!

You might want to check out model train shops/web sites. They have lots of scaled down stuff for train layouts (trees, bushes, cars, benches, etc).

Be sure to post some pictures when you get something set up!

 

[GobbyGruesome]

Here's an older thread by Rikki who did a great permanent base for her Spooky Town...
http://www.halloweenforum.com/halloween-props/69240-spooky-town-landscape.html

There was another one here somewhere with a pirate theme and underground caverns cut out of foam and lit with LEDs.

Here's a link to a photo album of our display....
http://www.halloweenforum.com/members/gobbygruesome-albums-spooky-town.html
There's a couple more albums if you're interested from different years.

My wife likes to change it up each year, so her methods may not be appropriate - it's very temporary. We take everything out of the storage bins, use the storage bins as a table, put down some MDF, add a few little MDF tables for hills and such, cover the whole thing with burlap to kinda give it that dead grass feel, put the buildings down, and then cover it with moss and grass purchased from Micheals and gravel bought at the pet store. We did buy a some moulds from a model train shop for making the odd rock out of plaster and that was super easy.

Hope this helps.

 

[Hoopah1972]

The foam never broke down when I sprayed it, it held the paint awesome and you can even used tectured spray paint. Even if it did break down, it would create an awesome effect.

 

[malcolm uk]

Just srarted mine
4 foot by 4 foot 12mm mdf two levels with a 2x1 frame underneath to prevent MDF sagging plus allows routing of cables

pva glued to seal the MDF

some people paint the mdf green incase the flock comes off but i prefer the brown earthy look as it looks like the grass is thinning out

i then mixed 500ml of green paint and a bit of black in case its too greeni with a big bag of sawdust
(i work in a timber yard) but this is usually free
left the mix to dry on newspaper for a few days

i also mixed a batch of red and yellow but used thicker saw dust
re glued the base and sprinkled the green mix on

on to the red and yellow

now i planned here to be where my cluster of tress will be so the thicker dust will look hopefully like fall leaves that have tumbled to the ground once my naked trees have been made

i need to get a few more stages in and then ill update with pictures if anyone is interested

total cost for a customer so far would approx $30.00 US or £20.00GBP

Malcolm

 

[HalloweenJock]

Thanks everyone for the responses... been a big help

 

[Jamesthegeek]

I second the idea of looking at model train websites. Look at woodland scenics. They have tutorials and everything. Much of their stuff you can now pick up at Hobby Lobby and Michaels.

 

[Mdog917]

I'm also a model railroader, (the two hobbies compliment themselves well!) and if you go to a hobby store in your area you should find what you want.. also cut up christmas garland painted looks good for some trees.. and also, a lot of natural materials

 

[zo6marlene]

Look at Youtube.com many, many ideas and some tutorials. Key in Halloween village or Halloween Dept 56/Lemax...also look at the Christmas villages as you can get some cross over ideas. Pinterest.com is interesting too for a few ideas. I bought two dvds by Leigh Geringer (sp) just for Halloween (she is big into Xmas villages) In the second dvd she uses a lot of spray foam insulation on her styrofoam for a creepy, dark look. Good luck and let your creative juices flow. Just remember...there are no wrong way to display these little houses, do what ever pleases your eye.

 

[malcolm uk]

one thing im finding so far is to plan for your cabling and hiding it

 

[imindless]

If you want hills or something other than just flat ground, you could use either hard or soft foam board. Soft, like something you might use for a car, bed, etc for padding. I have some because someone in my apartment complex was getting rid of it and I claimed it before they trashed it. Turf is pretty inexpensive for a few yards and that would solve the issue so no spray painting, you might have to cut the grass though I used to use turf for a Christmas Village we had set up on a table that was probably 2 feet wide and 5 feet long.

Those would just solve your basic hills and grass but really relieve you from the overall basic landscape so you could focus on stuff like trees, bushes, etc.

Hope that helps!

 

[Mdog917]

if you buy 2" Blue or pink foam insullation and stack it and glue it together and then you can carve it with a rasp, surform tool, or a finishing fander.. very messy though.. do it outside

 

[BillyBones]

You could also try Building New Worlds, the site is dedicated for the miniature village builder/collector

 

[Nixer]

the wife is really getting into spooky town this year, we don't have much but had a moss runner for our wedding, just married in june. she plans on using some of it for the spooky town setup this year. we have waaaayyyyy more than we need since the runner is 50ft long I believe, but I think its a cool idea.