Tag: Haunted Trail 2023

This has been a busy week, but we have finally made it to the third and final post of Project Wolfie, one of the new signature props for last year’s Halloween Haunted Trail (link here). If you missed the previous posts, feel free to get caught up on the first phase, The Shell (link here) and The Shaping (link here) before tackling this final phase, The Polishing.

Last we left, the Wolf shell was finally patched, smoothed and ready for paint.

Of note, it took until September 22nd to get to this point – a long journey having started in the middle of November! Unfortunately, I was now in full panic mode. There was still plenty to do to make the prop ready for the trail and there were only 8 days left before the event. It is hard enough to get everything done on the trail for the props that were already completed and any precious spare cycles were going to be vacuumed up getting this monster good enough for our guests to view. Spending a year on a project and not making it out for the night of haunt would be very disappointing.

Hit the jump to see if Wolfie was able to make fright night!

Continue reading Project Wolfie: Part 3 – The Polishing

Welcome to the second part of Project Wolfie, one of last year’s signature props built for our annual Halloween Haunted Trail (link here). If you missed the first post of the 3 part series, you can take a look at that here. In that initial phase I built the shell of the wolf out of foam board around and inner PVC core. Now it was time to take the 2D template below and refine the blocky 3D shell.

This phase was the most exciting and absolutely terrifying at the same time. There was a significant amount of time invested just to get to this point and now I was getting ready to start cutting it up so to speak. Art and especially the field of sculpting is one of those skills that was always just a bit out of reach – unable to fit it into my curriculums and aftwards never found the time with work and other activities. I have drawn since I was a kid and once this project popped in my head, started spending my spare time watching sculpting YouTube videos. Most of those tutorials were what I call additive – starting from a blank and building up material to the final product. Wolfie was the opposite scenario in that the material needed to be removed. In hindsight, I probably should have spent more time on “carving” tutorials. No glory for the timid, time to jump in.

Hit the jump to see how this phase turned out!

Continue reading Project Wolfie: Part 2 – The Shaping

I have been procrastinating on this series of posts for far too long and time to “bite” into it and get this off the to-do list. I worked on this particular Halloween prop for over 12 months and a bit disappointed I didn’t get it completely done before the big reveal at our 2023 Haunted Trail (link here). This isn’t the first time I didn’t get all the finishing touches on a prop in time – quite frankly, I am surprised it doesn’t happen more than it does. When an idea hits me, I rarely know what is completely involved. In the corporate world I had to know the ins and outs of a project before I ever stepped in front of management asking for the big bucks. On the Halloween front it’s pretty much dig in and figure it out as you go. Dream it and then iterate through the design and build phases until it looks like the vision. In this particular case, it all started when I looked over and saw this figurine sitting on a shelf in my den. If you are curious, it is part of an X-Men Wolverine scene.

That vision put me on a long journey to bring an entire new class of prop for the trail. With big projects come lots of design trade offs, execution mishaps, head scratching and compromise. I’ll try to keep you moving and gloss over some of the dead end roads, but it is still going to take some time – like three posts worth of time. As all my projects go, they are primarily meant for fellow haunters to learn what went right and hopefully accelerate their own projects.

Strap in and hit the jump, this is going to be fun!

Continue reading Project Wolfie: Part 1 – The Shell