Video: Production Update 10-9-16
Here is a production update video for the first week of October. In it, I show the model of the Halloween house, the structures for…
Tag Archives: How To Make
A Model School for Witchcraft and Wizardry
Sketches and Photoshop mock ups help a great deal in planning the Halloween House. Sometimes, though, I find it hard to envision how the scene…
Cardboard Logging
Each year there is an exciting journey to find all of the cardboard that will be used to create the front yard experience. Some years,…
The Builders of Hogwarts
“We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.” ― Professor Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Many…
Photoshop Planning
Prior to my career in graphic design (and just after my career in mechanical engineering), I took a class in Photoshop – a computer-based photo manipulation…
My Master List
As you can imagine, there are lots of things that go into creating a Halloween house, each of which has many steps and checkpoints. How…
Inside Hogwarts—What’s On the Porch?
In addition to providing a front yard scene where visitors can interact with costumed characters, we also like to give people the sense that they…
Magical Colors
Though I try to locate paint that is as inexpensive as possible, I do try to choose colors that would help people feel as if…
Sketching the Wizarding World
Before beginning to build, I try out many options for how I might lay out the scene through sketching. Whether they are drawn on paper…
The Great and Powerful Oz
What would a Wizard of Oz themed Halloween house be with out the Wizard of Oz? One of the most striking images in the original movie…
How to Make Corn Stalks
A few months before Halloween, when we finalized the layout we imagined an area where there would be the Scarecrow standing in a field of…
Oz in Miniature
Sometimes it is challenging to envision how parts of the Halloween house will go together. I find it really helpful to work out some of…
Now in Technicolor—Painting Day Update
On Saturday, September 12th, we hosted the second of three Community Painting Days. After the almost entirely green theme for the previous work day, this…
The Rainbow Projection
One of the iconic images from the Wizard of Oz is the rainbow. Because of that, we had to have a rainbow as part of…