# Halloween Village



## GrimleeFeindish (Jan 23, 2009)

After checking out a link on Pumpkinrot's blog I was prompted again to look at some of the Lemax and Dept 56 halloween stuff over on youtube. Of course being a cheap haunter that needs all my extra scratch for my yard haunt, I dont want to spend too much on those expensive houses and accessories that they sell commercially. Plus I thought that it would be cool in all of my spare time to build some terrain, trees, houses, and people from scratch for a Halloween village.

I began to look at all the halloween village videos and how they build the terrain. These people have some awesome set ups but they are pricey, the average house is $50.

The thing that I thought was really cool was a guy that made a Haunted Mansion from scratch, this sucker would be pretty expesnsive if you bought it for your village. I am thinking of doing a Michael Myers house made from scratch from foamcore, I think it would be a cool piece to make. Ill post pics eventually if I build it later.

Here is the link with his tutorial. The wargaming/terrain guys love the pink too, pink foam that is.

Haunted Mansion:
http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6890

Rot's link to "dirt cheap decor", which is also a cool tutorial on building a village platform.
http://dirtcheapdecoratingdivas.blogspot.com/2010/08/halloween-village-platform.html

There are a few really cool terrain building channels on youtube that you could use, I subscribed to a bunch. These guys build some cool trees and all kinds of stuff with everyday objects. Just search for terrain and you will find all kinds of cool info.


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## samhayne (Jul 3, 2008)

great find, i would love to try this out..

Thanks for sharing and i can't wait to see your project coming alive.


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## Spooky1 (Aug 25, 2008)

The guy who did the Haunted Mansion, did a beautiful job. I'm not that talented, so I doubt I could make anything nearly that good. Roxy is the artist in our house.


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## kprimm (Mar 14, 2009)

I am a miniature painter and scenery builder myself. The pink foam is great for building scenery. Get a hot knife and you are all set. Also alot of fun is casting your own building pieces. Check out www.hirstarts.com


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## GrimleeFeindish (Jan 23, 2009)

Kprimm, what kind of glue do you use to put down grass? Do you make your own flack? I saw a video on making your own out of sawdust. Looks like you can make trees too, its pretty much another hobby where you can buy stuff thats expensive or get creative and do it yourself. Its a cool hobby, lots of new stuff to take in. Do you use foamcore? Is that what its called? Its like the pink stuff, but thinner I think.


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## kprimm (Mar 14, 2009)

I use good ol elmers white glue for grass, and I just spread it on with a tooth pick. You can make your own trees but it's time consuming. I use elmers wood glue and paper towel, you can also use sculpey. I buy my flock already grass green and sometimes use sand and small stones for detailing miniature bases.I have a large bag of lichen that I use also. The pink foam is very handy to use and yes you can use foam core. For the hirst arts molds I use dental plaster.It is unbelievably hard and holds the detail very well. The sky is really the limit when building your own scenery, just practice trying everything.


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## GrimleeFeindish (Jan 23, 2009)

Thanks for the info Kprimm, got to get busy and just start making stuff. Do you use your terrain for table top gaming or just to make it? I never understood how the games work, I know there is alot of dice rolling and a stick or something to measure distance. Theres a shop near my house where they play DD and sell all the warhammer stuff. I always thought it was cool, from a model angle. I have been looking alot at the train building stuff too, they use alot of the same techniques. Thanks again.

Check out this Michael Myers house model, totally sweet.






This one too. Only thing I might change is the grass looks too lush for an old abandoned house. Other than that its nuts.


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## Darkmaster (May 9, 2009)

Wow, this brings back memories of model train building. I may have to get working on this and build my Halloween display.
Thanks for the link to the mansion build.


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## GrimleeFeindish (Jan 23, 2009)

I thought it was pretty cool. I started thinking that it would be fun to do a whole scene because you could pretty much do stuff that you could never do with a real haunt. Now I just have to find the time. Its pretty cool how these hobbies can cross over, the techniques are pretty similar, from dry brushing and other painting stuff to the use of pink foam.


BTW, taking my nursing boards next week, NCLEX-RN. Must pass it! I guess I should stop looking up Halloween stuff and get studying.


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## GrimleeFeindish (Jan 23, 2009)

Passed!!!


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