It's been a productive week bringing this wild Broodhollow haunt to life. First, I got half of The Last Halloween cemetery done. Why half? Because I have another 6 or 7 stones to paint for the other side of the walkway, plus a few more figures to clean up or paint to finish the scene. I also have to lay out all the spoopy trees and branches to fill in the gaps and do my final distressing/highlighting on the repainted stones.
I also got three of the figures for the Broodhollow celebration portion mostly done. Once I cut them out, I worry about the base/background elements. I also always have to touch up these figures after cutting them out since a jigsaw is an imprecise but effective tool.
Here's the complete Wadsworth Zane, our not so brave hero.
And here's a step by step of the creation of Cadavre/Fracture and Iris Bellweather.
I also got the papier mache done for the top of the belltower. That's where I learned that I cannot papier mache for hours at a time like I used to, as the repeated motion of squeezing the excess paste off the newspaper between the fingers of my right hand causes me incredible pain. Thanks, carpal tunnel. I need to add the central support beam to the open box once it fully dries. I'll paint the inside and the beam first so I don't pull out my hair later.
When it dries fully, I can remove the paint cans and it will be pretty close to stable. The wet paste temporarily softens the cardboard infrastructure as it bonds. The result is far stronger than cardboard alone. The mache layers are enough of a barrier to stop the paint from destabilizing the cardboard itself.
