Barlow Manor - Year One

[berzerkmonkey]

Well, Barlow Manor - Year One has come and gone. Seems like a bit of a blur in retrospect - our weekends for two months were jam packed with preparation, and by 9:30 Halloween Night, everything was gone. Like it was never there in the first place... Or perhaps the tenuous connection to life the Barlows cling to only has the strength to manifest itself once per year? I suppose we'll find out next year, if and when the Manor and its inhabitants are able to return in 2008.

http://www.portablezombie.com/gallery/main.php

Lighting was good, though there wasn't enough ambient light to get any good night shots - a big disappointment. Next year I plan on getting some LED spots built and placed in the cemetery. Hopefully it won't be so windy next year and won't blow all my fog away.

All in all though, we think it went well - the family came over and enjoyed the festivities, we had a couple hundred visitors, and alot of compliments. Next year, it will be even better!

[JohnnyL]

Very good job! Your tombstones look really really awesome.

[BudMan]

Nice job, love the gravedigger!

[berzerkmonkey]

Very good job! Your tombstones look really really awesome.
Thanks. The routing was a group effort by my wife and myself, but she did all of the painting, as I was working on other stuff.
Nice job, love the gravedigger!
Yeah, he was kind of rushed though, but (fortunately) the dark hid the imperfections. I didn't reinforce the PVC frame enough, and he was in constant danger of keeling over.

I'm not going to make the same mistake next year and wait until the end of August to start. I'll be working on projects all year long so I can get things right this time.

[widowsbluff]

Nice job on the tombstones.

[skeletonowl]

i see good potential next year for some graveyard surprises

[Ghoul Friday]

Really liked the spider victim layout.

[dacostasr]

Very COOL...how did you stuff that cat?

Dennis

[Haunted Bayou]

Nice first year set-up.
The great thing is you can add a few props every year. Before you know it...there isn't enough room to store it all. LOL!

[CreepyCanmore]

As mentioned, the tombstones look great. I also liked the big spider and web. Your house has a great look for a haunt.

[berzerkmonkey]

As mentioned, the tombstones look great. I also liked the big spider and web. Your house has a great look for a haunt.
Thanks - the web had to be a custom job. We have one of those 8 foot wide octagon ones, but it was nowhere near big enough to fit anywhere we wanted to put it. So we just bought some rope and after some staking and many clove hitches, we had a web.

After we started decorating, I also realized that we had a pretty good haunt look - though I was leaning towards a Victorian when we were house hunting, strictly for Halloween purposes (man, that's bad - lol!) I do wish our attic window was larger, but it worked well for the static skeleton up there this year.

[mikeq91]

Great tombstones and I like the grave digger! if this is your first year i look forward to seeing what you'll do in the future. nice work

[NickG]

looks great - I'm very impressed by the painting on the tombstones and pillars.. I've got to learn how to do that b/c realistic tombstones is one of my project goals for 2008.

[slightlymad]

Looks great cant wait to see next year