Starting work on the coral reef.

The coral reef in the foreground of the display will be one of the highlights. I've already started construction. Basically, it will be a wood base and frame with chicken wire and paper mache simulating a rocky outcropping. Sponges, coral and sea urchins will (I hope) complete the look.

Here is a picture of the basic wooden frame made out of pieces of thin plywood for the ribs and base, and covered in chicken wire. My staple gun got a good workout attaching the mesh to the wood frame. My neighbor spotted me working on it and had to come over and ask what the heck I was doing. Sheesh, you'd think he'd be used to living next door to a nut by now.

Anyways, the frame has a spot on the top where my animatronic skull will sit. The hole is so he can turn his head to look at the clams.

The back part will have an are left open to hold a laptop computer that will control the servos.

I made a huge tub o' paper mache by soaking lots of newspaper in water overnight, mixing it into a pulpy mess, then wringing it out and adding a big bucket of wallpaper paste. I discovered it's hard to find good old fashioned powdered wallpaper paste any more. I had to buy this expensive premixed stuff so I hope it dries okay.

I started to cover the frame with the paper mache. What a sloppy mess it is to work with the stuff but it seems to be covering it pretty well. The secret it to pat handfuls off mache flat, lay them on the chicken wire, and then gently press it down and smooth it out.

Hey it's starting to really look like something.

Oh oh. I'm running out of goop. Oh crap, I'm not going to have enough to cover all the wire so I'm going to have to make more later. Oh well at least I've got the front part covered.

Looks pretty impressive already though. Back soon!

Halloween 2009!

Okay. Here we go with Halloween 2009! Despite the many things that make my life so busy and interesting, such as getting MARRIED this fall and my new wife starting a business, I'm am still going to try to pull together a great Halloween display.

Fortunately, I have a bit of a head start because we hosted a Pirate Party about a month ago and many of the props I made for it are going to be featured in the Halloween display.

I wanted to come up with something a bit different this year and settled on a Pirate theme. But...lots of people have done that. Hmmm. How to make it different? Aha! I have it. It'll be UNDERWATER. Yes, that's it. A sunken ship at the bottom of the sea and a coral reef with animatronics.

The coral reef will (hopefully) look like this with these clam characters.  If I get time, I'll make the opening treasure chest and a separate rock with "Murray Eel" in it.

The ship's wheel and skeleton will do nicely as the centerpiece of the sunken ship. Ive already made a pretty convincing anchor. And I can create a coral reef in the foreground with a talking skull and little talking clams.

I've purchased an SSC-32 servo controller online and I'm just starting to learn about controlling servos with a computer. There's a cool program called VSA that allows you to control the motion of many servos and sync them to sound.

So here goes. Stay tuned as I try to pull this together in two short months.