Witchlette continued: The mech

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to add some head movement to the Witchlette. I have made head turning mechs before, but always on a larger scale where the overall size wasn't an issue. This project has several design demands that I have not encountered before.

• The mech must be small enough to fit inside the body.
• The mech must be reliable. In the past, I have made props for myself, and troubleshooting always seems to be par for the course. This mech must work flawlessly and provide trouble free operation.

This is my first successful configuration that will meet the necessary requirements. After the pictures were taken, I have tweaked a few dimensions to make the mechanism even more compact than pictured. The design will allow me to easily adjust the overall height and neck-to-torso dimensions, but for now proof of concept has been achieved.

Witchlette

Here's the start of my next animated, motorized figure. This one is already taking on a life of her own and developing a creepy personality. Like Luther, she will be a motorized prop stirring a small cauldron. I may try to coax a little more movement into her, but haven't quite figured out how to hide the mechanism I have been thinking about in such a small space. I also need to make sure to leave access to any inner workings for potential troubleshooting and maintenance. It is also possible that the stirring motion will be enough. Decisions, decisions....

Little brown bat

Pix of a bat we found in my son's school. After some observation, it was turned loose in our backyard to help thin out the mosquito population.

Rusty Lanterns

What haunt couldn't use a rusted out, flickering lantern to add to the creepy atmosphere? These lanterns are painted and textured to appear very old and rusty. The original 'pristine' lantern shown on the box below comes with a very shiny black finish and a stark white LED light. I have removed the stock LEDs and replaced them with a good quality flickering tealight candle. A great feature of the lantern is that it has a nice dimmer switch and operates off 2 AA batteries. By wiring the tealight directly to the switch, I can take advantage of variable electrical inputs which exaggerate the flickering effect from full flicker to a dim sputtering that looks like the lantern is about to go out.