Anita Cat Memorial Tombstone Prop

I just put the wraps on a special new tombstone going into this year's display. Anita Cat was a friend of a friend who unfortunately passed away earlier this year. She was a fan of the Cemetery, so I thought I'd give her a little memorial there when I heard the news...

Many years ago, Anita let me do her zombie makeup for a costume party that she was going to. I can't remember if she won Best Costume, but I had a ton of fun doing it. Rest in peace, Anita...

Let me show you how I created this stone...

I started by creating the size and shape of the stone along with the epitaph in Adobe Illustrator. I then tiled the printouts together at 100% size. I used a repositionable glue stick on the back of the paper and adhered it to a scrap piece of 2" blue foam that I had. One I had it in place, I trimmed the curved top portion of the stone with a small handheld jigsaw. I then started carving out the black areas of the epitaph with my Dremel tool. I use the guide attachment while carving to keep the depth consistent. It also helps control the tool for more accurate carving...

Once I had the epitaph fully carved, I peeled the remaining paper from the front of the stone, giving it a quick rinse with the hose to remove any paper pieces or remaining glue areas. I then took a piece of sand paper and sanded all of the edges, adding chips and divots to mimic and old, weathered stone. I also gently sanded the entire face of the stone, adding slight eroded streak areas to the cross and some of the letters. Once I had given the stone a full "weathering" with the sand paper, I was ready for paint.

I painted this stone quickly using only three colors. I always start with the darkest color and work my way up to the lightest. I used a very dark grey for my base color, making sure to get into every letter, flourish and crack. 

Once the stone was completely coated with the dark grey, I did a full dry brush coat with a light grey. This color formed the actual base color of the stone, leaving the dark grey in the recessed areas like letters, cracks and chips.

After a thorough brushing of the light grey, I went in with an olive green and sparsely dry-brushed areas of moss and mold. I concentrated on corner areas, especially at the base, and anywhere that water might run down during rain.

For the final step, I needed to add the holes for mounting into the yard display. I always drill 2 3/8" holes into the bottom of the tombstone. I insert a length of 3/8" PEX pipe into each hole, and when it's ready to go into the display, I stick 2 pieces of 5/16" dowel rod into the ground, then slip the PEX pipe holes over them. I may eventually go larger on the pipe and dowel rods, but this setup has worked well for me so far.

I knocked this tombstone out pretty quick, and was happy with the result. On Halloween night, it will get set up in the Cemetery display with the other memorial stones, and we'll be sure to lift a pumpkin beer toast in their honor.