This is my first attempt at a large pirate display. We built a small deck off the front of my house a year or so ago and I got the idea to turn it into a pirate ship for Halloween. I have been working on it for the last couple of weeks. I got some great ideas for this ship from a lot of the members on this board.
It is a "Work in progress". I have a little more "Tweaking" to do before the big day. I still have to add a skeleton pirate that will be "Walking the plank" and I have one more free standing pirate skeleton that has yet to be delivered.
I am also still working on the navigational (Red/Green) lanterns. I have a fog machine that will go behind the "Bow" along with a lightening strobe. There will also be a lightening strobe on the main deck next to the ship's wheel. The deck torches will be lit at night.
I am also going to be adding some rope "Rigging" and more netting to finish her off........l
WOW! Mic214 that is amazing!!! For a first attempt....well that looks pretty profesional to me! I love how you made it part of the actual house. It looks huge. The TOT are going to love coming to your house this year. Very nice work.
It is a pretty fair size set up. The deck is 10' high and it is 8' deep x 14' wide. The mast runs 18' to the top of the flag pole section. After looking at the pics, I am thinking on moving the gang plank to the other side of the deck (To the bay window side) as it is easier to see......
I added the red and green nav lites last night and also lit the torches and turned on the lightening strobe down in the bow section. I took some pics, but they didn't turn out too good. The flash kept washing everything out. I took some more pics tonight:
Aye mate, an honor it'd be ta set sail in th' Mournin' Star, a ship any pirate'd pray 'e be worthy 'nuff ta sail in.. A most excellent feat... fete.. either one.. Reminds me o' me Pearl!
This might seem like a big thing that you might have trouble convincing your significant other to do, but it would look so good: Paint the deck rails brown and then paint them back in November.
Ha, ha, ha.....that would be great, but I am having a hard enough time convincing my bride into letting leave it up for Christmas!!!!! I thought a "Santa Pirate" would be way cool.......she, on the other hand, does not!
I took some more night photos with my other camera and I think they turned out pretty cool:
WOAH! Such details!!! It shows you definitely put a lot of time, effort and money into it! 1st attempt? you want to make it a 2nd attempt for my house? lol jk!
I tweaked my display a bit and added a few more props, so now I think I am finally DONE!!!! We moved a couple of the skeletons around on the ship and re-arranged the tombstones on the lawn. We took out some of the "Non-pirate" decorations and added some more green and blue spot lights.
I was able to score an old, wrecked row boat for free. I cut the boat in half and set up a skeleton in it, along with a few more skeleton tiki torches, a couple of kegs, some rope and another tattered pirate flag. I think it turned out pretty good.......
I took a bunch of pictures of my project as I went along. My night photography skills are not very good, but some of the pics came out OK. Here is a link to my Photobucket album:
We have a small ledge shelf above our garage and I had thought of doing a ship something like you did with it coming at you but boy yours is way better than I would have planned. Great use of your upper deck. Really, really nice job there. The only thing IMO I thought was lacking from your photo page was lighting of the ship from ground level and the addition of fog around the ship's hull. You did such a nice job making the hull people really should see it more in the dark.
Mic214 I noticed from your prop table that you had something called a cannon thunder strobe. How did this work, did you think it was a good effect and where did you purchase it from?
Thanks for the kind words! I actually do have a fog machine that I have yet to set up. I plan to put it in the driveway behind the bow of the ship. That is where I put the cannon thunder strobe light (K-Mart) and it worked pretty well, but one of my neighbors thought as you did and suggested that I add more light behind the bow. So I just added a blue flood light a couple of days ago and it looks pretty good. I will try and take some more night time pics of it all with everything lit up......
I was wondering where you got the row boat from Great idea!
Your display looks great - I'm bummed that I didn't look at this thread sooner - would have loved one of those anchors! And nice score on the kegs/barrels. We were scouring the freecycle and craig's lists out here for that stuff, but no luck.
Becoming a "haunter" does change your perception of garage sales, thrift stores, etc. I find myself looking at objects with a "what can I make out of that" mindset!
Thanks for the kind words! I have had a lot of fun putting this all together. I have spent a lot of time on Craigslist and the internet in general looking for stuff. You are so right that becoming a "Haunter" does make you look at things differently! Next year, I am hoping to get my cannons set up to fire and I want to make the ship's wheel turn a bit. I also need to add a pirate audio soundtrack too.....
Now all I have to do is convince my lovely bride that a "Pirate" Christmas would work!!!!!