[I'mbadash]

I think it would be hilarious to have a thread that shows our prop making fails. I've had quit a few myself, the worst being an attempt at one of those unorthodox creatures. I'm going to get a pic of it on here soon. I'm sure we have all had a bad go at something and it would be fun to make fun of ourselves a little!

 

[I'mbadash]

This went really bad, I made a big mess, Monster mud was everywhere! After all was said and done he kept falling over. I'm not very good at "structures" I should have let my husband do that.

 

[marigolddesigns]

"A" for effort! I had some humor yesterday dressing my pvc guys......Everytime I went inside the house from the garage, something crazy was going on in the garage because one of my pvc old man's pants kept ending up around his ankles....it was an LOL moment....all to my self!

 

[I'mbadash]

hahaha, I love those moments! It seems to be even funnier when you're by yourself. I just wish I could get anything with pvc to even stand. I lack the patience and concern to do it properly. I'm more of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of gal.

 

[OctoberDream]

OK, I'll play along. This year I tried to sculpt with clay and found out that using foam and PVC as part of you armature is a bad idea.

As the clay dries it shrinks, but the foam does not. 1st duh.

I was able to fix the cracks, but realized that I have no way to fire the piece without melting the whole base. 2nd Duh.
I am not sure what to do with it now.

 

[I'mbadash]

I've done something similar to that as well! Maybe someone on here can help you fix it, I'm at a loss though.

 

[FearingtonHouse]

I built the toe pincher coffin *lid* before building the coffin. It's too small...kindof falls into the coffin. I was hoping to have it static this year and automate it next year, but because I used about a dozen pieced-together pallet boards, it's almost a total rebuild. LOL

Lesson: build the coffin first, use the finished product to size the lid, because you never know...

 

[marigolddesigns]

Pvc outside is easy....put a few pieces of rebar into the ground and slide the legs over.....pvc inside....make a stand with scrap plywood and a landscape timber piece attached with wholes drilled....mine is not fancy, but it works!

hahaha, I love those moments! It seems to be even funnier when you're by yourself. I just wish I could get anything with pvc to even stand. I lack the patience and concern to do it properly. I'm more of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of gal.

 

[ooojen]

Good thread idea! I love Pinterest fails; they make one feel so human!
I don't have any to photograph right now, but it's nearly inevitable that there will be one in my future. The only people who never have fails are those who don't try a lot of new things.

 

[Countess No]

Fun thread; looking forward to posting my fails.

 

[punkineater]

oh my...where does one even begin?
Great thread idea, IBA!!!

 

[Ratmonkey]

There are no Fails. Only happy accidents.

 

[darryl]

HA!! I haven't done any thing electrical (or much of anything at all) for halloween for years. Getting back into it this year. Started up the OLD laptop and Light-O-Rama last night. Took me four hours and lots of Googling to figure out (remember) to assign each channel to the right place. And then today I fired up the old VSA talking skeleton routine and took another three hours of tweaking to remember and figure out what Comm port to assign to the servo board. Hope it gets easier from here on out.

 

[cmerli]

The flying saucer looked great during the day with the thin silver material that covers the board. I even thought the fact that it glowed at night was a bonus till I saw the writing on the bottom. Fortunately there was no printing on top so from the street it still worked..

 

[craftygirl]

Oh my, I don't even know where to begin. I've never taken pictures of my fails though there have been many! The worst has been my several attempts at Oogie Boogie my current one is version 3.5. It drives me crazy because he is basically a star shaped piece of burlap.

Good idea for a thread we can have "prop fail group therapy" here on HF.

 

[Stereo]

Add stitches and blood, possibly ax to the back of the head... just spitballin' ideas...

 

[Torgo]

Last year as I was setting up, I dropped the back of my sparkleball/PVC spider and it shattered.



I was very sad because I love that spider, but then I remembered that I'd covered a 20" garden basket with lights for another failed project, and with a few adjustments to the spider body, it fit rather nicely. So in that case fail + fail = some reduction in the overall level of fail.

I put my timed fog machine behind the spider, which looked a little flatulent each time it went off. Fortunately, I had small boys around to appreciate the humor of my GIANT GLOWING FARTING SPIDER. They were in hysterics over it.

I tried to make a large pumpkin last weekend, by molding florist wire net (aka chicken wire) and wrapping it with orange lights. This looked way better in my head than in reality. It's the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree equivalent of a pumpkin - sad, lopsided and wobbly. My husband tried to praise it as 'rustic' but he was clearly grasping for adjectives.

My biggest fail to date is the fortune teller machine I started working on (mumble mumble) years ago and have never finished. Here it is when my cat decided to have a seat inside the booth. She's yawning, but doesn't she look tough?



It's an old Barbie styling head and hands set inside the top half of a broken Ikea cabinet. She's hooked up to a sort-of Axworthy-esque setup involving a deer motor on the inside of the cabinet, and fishing line on her head and hands through eyehooks in the ceiling . I got as far as getting the movement working and then life got in the way and I never finished the rest of the cabinet. Maybe I'll get back to her someday.

 

[Zing!]

One year I made an elaborate garage haunt maze with a life-size animatronic Frankenstein monster as the centerpiece. Started well over a month and a half in advance constructing the haunt (no small feat when you have to park outside in chilly Minnesota instead of your warm garage!) and got so preoccupied fixing last minute problems on Halloween day that I forgot to turn on the black light that illuminated the creature. It wasn't until trick-or-treating was over and I was tearing down that I realized no one could even see the creature as they walked by because the black light wasn't turned on!

D'oh! Major fail!

 

[Death Wraith]

I built a kicking hanging guy with a monster guts motor and their 5 amp PS. During ToT the dummies clothing got caught up in the mechanism, stalled the motor and blew-out the power supply.

 

[I'mbadash]

I built a kicking hanging guy with a monster guts motor and their 5 amp PS. During ToT the dummies clothing got caught up in the mechanism, stalled the motor and blew-out the power supply.

That's a pretty epic fail there lol . Love it.