Showing posts with label voodoo. Show all posts

"Halloween Angel" Feltie

I would be remiss if I did not give a proper shout out for this one. Shortly after Halloween, I received an unexpected package from my old haunt friends Bonnie and Tom from the Ghouls of Gaithersburg home haunt. And in the package was this!!

A hand-sewn "Halloween Angel" feltie!! I usually don't do Halloween "cute," but I absolutely love this one with her streaked hair, big red lips and little orange bat wings! Thank you, Bonnie!!

This is going into my collection, right next to her "Baron Samedi" feltie that she gifted me a few years back.

The new Halloween couple, the Angel & the Baron:

"The Chemist" Voodoo Doll by Artsytartsyandsuch

Now I know the first thought that will go through your head when you see the photo is, "That isn't something that Highbury Cemetery is into. It's too cute!"

And you're usually right, except in this instance. On very rare occasions, I'll drift into the "cute" Halloween realm...

Good friend of Highbury Cemetery, Miss Juli Riedel at Artsytartsyandsuch recently posted a photo of her newest voodoo doll creation and I knew I had to have it. The amazing fabric print pattern used on The Chemist really spoke to the graphic designer in me and I snatched it up the second she put it up in her Etsy store. She found out that it was a little birthday present to myself and she ended up going the extra distance and added a few extra goodies including a handmade birthday card. Super cool!!

So now my newest voodoo doll will take his rightful place among the few other voodoo items on my office shelf (right next to the Highbury feltie that was created by Miss RoxyBlue!), providing positive juju to the entire Cemetery!

If you're interested, you can still get "The Chemist" from Juli's store, Artsytartsyandsuch on Etsy. Do yourself a favor and check out all the cool handmade goodies in her store. And tell her that Highbury sent 'ya!!

"The Highbury Feltie" by RoxyBlue

How insanely cool is this little guy!?! HauntForum member and good friend RoxyBlue has an array of really cool, Halloween inspired, hand-made felt figures. So imagine my surprise when her newest figure was inspired by Alice Cooper, voodoo AND my 2016 Highbury Cemetery haunt logo! I was honored to play a part in the inspiration, but was blown away when she said she was sending it to me!!

And he showed up in the mail yesterday, well packed and ready to take his place in my cherished Halloween shelf. He is already fitting in and making new friends. This really was an incredible surprise and I can't thank her enough!!

Le Cadavre de Vodoun

The next completed prop to shamble out of the garage is my new, voodoo-inspired piece, Le Cadavre de Vodoun. The Voodoo Corpse has been prepped to meet with Baron Samedi, voodoo ruler of the graveyard, and be escorted to the underworld beyond the living...

The first piece that I started with was the coffin that would contain the corpse. I went straight from ScareFX's great tutorial on their $25 Full-Size Toe Pincher Coffin. I constructed the entire thing in a weekend and the detailed how-to was easy to follow. I ended up making a few minor edits to the measurements, as the cedar fence panels that I used may have been slightly thinner than the ones that were used for the tutorial. Also, the materials were slightly more than $25 at the local Home Depot. I decided that I liked the look of the wood as it was, so I didn't do any aging of any kind once it was built. I will be placing the finished piece in a dimly lit room, so the brightness of the bare wood would pop more in the low light...

Once the coffin was complete, it was time to turn to its inhabitant. I used a Costco skeleton and started corpsing it using a great how-to from Allen Hopps at Stiltbeast Studios. I used a .7 mil drop cloth wrapped loosely around the body, limbs and skull, and then went over it all with a heat gun. The heat worked great, as it caused the plastic to melt and seal itself onto the skeleton form. A few layers of plastic and it looked like a semi-transparent flesh. This technique is really fast and really easy...

Once the plastic corpsing was done, I simply coated everything with some wood stain, making sure to wipe off the raised areas with a rag. If you're going to try this technique, please wear rubber gloves as you probably don't want to stain your fingers Deep Walnut or any other dark wood color.

The stain took about 48 hours to dry completely, and once it dried, I went about adding the voodoo elements. I started with a quick necklace made of small skulls. The skulls came from Pat Catan's and cost about $5 for two small bags. I then added a skeleton key necklace (the corpse will use the key to unlock the gate to the underworld), using an old skeleton key that I had found in my grandfather's garage earlier this summer. The final touch was to add a faded skull face paint to the corpse's actual face. I added a red cross on the forehead and he was ready to be entombed. I placed him into the coffin and added some cobwebbing...

I'm REALLY happy with the way the dried flesh turned out. It's semi-transparent so that you can see some of the bones, yet still looks like it has been dried out over the years. Once the entire prop was together, the only thing left to do was get it into the correct lighting along with a few more accent pieces for some night shots. The complete piece below will be taking center stage of my voodoo crypt room on Halloween night. I can't wait!

Saint Louis Number 1 Cemetery, New Orleans

The wife and I took a much-needed vacation at the end of September and traveled down to New Orleans, Louisiana. What a city! We went non-stop from the time we got there until the time we left. We even came back with some voodoo dolls, so you better stay on my good side!

One of the highlights was a guided tour of Saint Louis Number 1, the city's oldest and most famous cemetery, opened in 1789. It's famous for housing the crypt of New Orleans' voodoo queen, Marie Laveau. Also, it's the cemetery where scenes in Easy Rider were filmed (illegally) in 1969. It spans just one square block, but is the resting place of over 100,000 dead.

Here are some shots that I took while roaming through the rows and rows of crypts. Hopefully they'll inspire some of you with some prop ideas or just give you the chills. Enjoy!