Dr. Phibes Tombstone Prop

With a newborn in the house, time for Halloween is at a premium, but I finally finished my first prop of the year! A small homage to the 1971 Vincent Price classic, The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

I had one piece of white popcorn foam left in the garage, so I went to work with that, cutting a new shape that wasn't yet in the cemetery. I gave the entire stone a base coat of white ceiling paint, and then cut in the flourishes that I had picked up from the Davis Graveyard Etsy store. I used Gorilla Glue and spackle to make sure they were set and flush in the stone.

I then cut in a few cracks with an X-Acto blade and filled them in with black paint.
 

I then gave the entire front of the stone a wash of watered down black. I went darker with the paint in some spots for a streaked effect.

After the black, I used a coat of watered down green. I printed out a stencil for the epitaph, traced it on, and then filled in the letters using a Sharpie marker. The marker left the lettering a little bit lighter than if I had used paint, and it gave a nice, weathered look (somehow I forgot to take any pictures of this stage...).

When that was all finished, the only thing left to do was throw some spanish moss on it, bathe it in the glow of warm colored LEDs and snap away.