Eli Thatch (Motorized Pumpkin Sorcerer)

 Eli Thatch is one of the great Pumpkin Sorcerers of The Shadow Farm. His specialty is potions, and can brew up nearly any concoction known to man (and many not known to man). On the night of the full harvest moon, Eli takes his brass cauldron to the cemetery and mixes up a batch of magic on the bones of his ancestors that some claim results in the changing of the leaves that welcome Autumn to The Farm.

Allow me to geek out here for a minute. For many years I have wanted to miniaturize the classic Halloween yard prop "the cauldron stirrer". You know...adapt the coolness to a size suitable for my small art pieces. This year I feel I have succeeded. I know the haunters out there will be wanting to know how it is done, but in this case I want to keep the mechanism unique to The Shadow Farm. I can say, however, that I have both motions operating from a single 12v dc motor. The linkage is very simple, durable, and operates extremely smoothly with all the works housed inside the small crypt. 

The Alchemist

Home Depot Halloween Style Challenge on "The Farm"

I have been a bad blogger. I admit it...it has been a busy summer, but that's really no excuse. That badge you see next to this post (Home Depot Guest Blogger)...well that is partly the reason I have left this little piece of the internet silent for so long. A few months back, Home Depot invited me to participate in their Halloween Style Challenge. I was given a 'mystery box' and a gift card and was asked to design a space with a Halloween theme. True to my yard haunter roots, I went with my front yard. Read the post here and be sure to check out the complete series which include two of my personal favorites Love Manor and Stolloween.

The Bone Polisher (by Fox G)

 This week I had a special guest helping in the shop. My nephew Fox came to visit, and wanted to make his very own animatronic creepy prop.
In Fox's words:

"It just was a stupid bear from my grandma, and it wasn't even Christmas when I got it. I had no use for it so I gave it to my Uncle Dave. He didn't use it, so when I got there we decided to take it apart...and look what we found inside! A baby stomach!!!
When we got all of the fur off, his arms were made of wire, his legs made of metal, and his head is a plastic rectangular circle. So we were thinking on what we could make him into.

We found this black skull, and set it on the plastic part.

 I liked the way it looked, but it was not scary enough so we put eyes in it. But the eyes had too much gap in it, so we put clay around it. As we waited for it to dry, we thought of what the clothes should be. So we started to put on clothes, but when we put on the clothes we saw the baby pinkness of the stomach. We spray painted it black and put black cloth on it. Then we put bones on its arms and spray painted them black. Then the eyes dried and then we got all the clothes on. So we put it on, and put a hood for it. And we put decorations. We had a bone and a brush.

This is how he turned out. When we plug him in, we made it so he will brush his bone and turn his head side to side. I decided that since he is now a monster, I had to make a story for him of how he turned to a monster.
and his story is....
He was an old bone polisher and there was a car wreck in front of his shop, and when the car hit the window, it splashed shiny paint. When he screamed, the black paint went in his mouth, coloring all his bones totally black. And that is how he turned into who he is now.

This is my creation by Fox."

I think Fox did a great job with his new monster. He is very proud of it, and plans on keeping it in his camper to scare everyone.