It appears as a dark wood with no evident path running through it, filled with trees “not green, but of dark colour” with “branches not wholesome, but knotted and twisted” (XIII, 2-5); and in fact the trees themselves are those damned souls guilty of suicide, grown “into branches and woody plants” to be tormented by harpies as punishment (XIII, 100).

I start with a PVC T drilled into a base of plywood scrap, I then build a PVC armature, bending it with a heat gun where needed and adding a skull for a head, after that is done I build a chicken wire body around the armature securing it with zip ties. The jaw of the skull is held in a permanent scream with wire and hot glue.

One the base armature is finished I cover the chicken wire with newspaper and clear packing tape. This helps to cover the texture of the chicken wire for the next step, paper towel mache. I add real branches on the “arm” ends of the tree.

Using a mixture of White Elmer’s glue and water (1 part glue to 2 parts water) I dip the paper towel in the mixture and wring it out slightly and lay it on the tree overlapping layers slightly. after the first layer is on I let it dry for a few hours and add a second layer. The second layer is where I add detail I scrunch the paper towel mache to make what looks to me to be bark like texture.

Once I have the paper towel mache like I want it maybe 3 layers thick I let it dry for several days. Then using flat black spray paint I paint the whole thing black. Using exterior grade latex house paint in a brown tone I paint the surface with a brush.

Once everything is dry I dry brush the surface with a tan color.

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The person wanted a witch.  I don’t normally work from reference photos they tend to mess me up and frustrate me. I will look at Google images and books for a while and then think on it for a bit and a while later start working, making some sort of amalgamation of what I looked at I guess.

I usually work on top of a 2 part urethane foam skull cast I make. I add bulk to the foam with Celluclay, Available at any art store or online.

I then start adding more defining features as I see fit. In this case the chin and the nose. These are the main features most witches have in my mind. I placed roll-on deodorant balls in the eye sockets after I dug some of the foam out so they would fit in there (they aren’t glued in yet).

I continue defining the brow and add some mass to the forehead area. I add most of the nose at this point.

I hate the nose I added so I removed it and slimmed it down a lot. You will notice the Celluclay has shrunk a lot in the picture below, its 30-50% water and it does that. Its also fairly hard at this point. it has dried for maybe 2-3 days. I had a lot of frustration with the nose, I re sculpted it many times. Sometimes this happens with a certain feature, it can be maddening.

I then take Paperclay and start adding it over the Celluclay making a smooth topcoat. I have also added some glue to the back of the roll-on balls and glued them in place where I wanted them, I normally use Gorilla glue for this.  I think I also removed the hook from the end of her nose if I remember correctly. The Paperclay topcoat is where I add in most of my detail of wrinkles, and texture.

Paperclay does dry much faster than Celluclay and has a tendency to crack sometimes, I will go back after the Paperclay is dry and fill in the cracks as needed.

Then its on to painting, I usually paint the eyes last.

And hair

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About 2 weeks prior to Halloween I started on this piece. I wanted him to appear as if he were about to stand up. I used a full sized skeleton from Anatomical Supply Company. They do weigh a lot, to accomplish this I placed it on a base of 1 inch plywood and took 3/4 inch all-thread and figured out where his feet and knee would touch the plywood. Then I bolted the all-thread to the underside of the plywood. After drilling holed in his feet and knees I placed him over the all-thread sections I had cut to length, and poured epoxy down into the holes securing him to the base. I then took small amounts of Magic Sculp and affixed his hips with screws and made sure he did move. I then posed his arms and did the same. After that was all set I posed his spine by bending the metal rod that is in his back and poured fast set epoxy down his spine. I then made his cloak from muslin and Monster Mud, as I did with Mr. Lo Pan.

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After that I decided she needed a better place to reside come Halloween. A few years ago we had a section of fence replaced along the alley out back. So now we had a bunch of spare wood. I like the image of a swamp witch living in a shanty, We didn’t make a plan, we hauled all the wood and junk to the front yard and made a shanty, now Myrtle had a place to make her tasty grub in that big old pot of hers.

This worked really well. People could see her but couldn’t walk up to her and see her “workings”. Mission accomplished. In fact it was so well designed, when we made it we intentionally made it look like it was falling over and each morning I would walk out to my car to go to work and think Oh CRAP! its gonna fall over into the picket fence what the hell happened to it last night.

Last year I wanted a place to put Mr. Lo Pan

I wanted him near a water type area. So I thought maybe we should add a dock to Myrtle’s place. We had some fencing left from the fence rebuild, So after we rebuilt the shanty (v2 of the shanty, we didn’t remember exactly how we built it before).

You cant see Mr Lo Pan in these pictures because he is at the end of the pier, about where the picture is taken from. I really liked it, it is a nice addition. For 2008 I think Myrtle might be on a vacation. I hear that a cemetery caretaker is looking for a residence and needs some wood and supplies to build a residence. We will see what happens.

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The new one in progress

Last years, Now a concept piece for me.

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These next pictures were taken by me with a Canon A610 and a few colored floodlights for the hauntforum contest so I could turn in my entry for the contest. This isnt to show that Im a better photographer than my frient with the SLR, because I am not. Its simply to show that haunt lighting is very hard to photgraph in.

He is 95% Monster Mud, chicken wire, muslin, and cheese cloth. And a bit of urethane foam and mache and elmer’s glue. Oh and some air dry clay. …and lots of painting.

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Ed is made of air dry clay, urethane foam, painted with acrylic paints and acrylic inks.

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Last year I made a shovel for a piece I was working on.

This is the shovel after I initially started it. It is made from an aluminum pizza peel. I purchased it from a restaurant supply store.

Then I Added the transition from shovel blade to handle with epoxy clay.

Then I coated it with Iron B coating from Sculpt Nouveau

With Black, Tan and Tifanny green Patina’s

After a few hours and coated with permalac to stop the reaction

Resources: Sculpt Nouveau Patinas, Magic sculp Epoxy Clay

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