Ahhh, if I weren't sick right now, I would be recovered from my Halloween experiences.
As it is, the sore throat (and, now, cough and general malaise) have been making me sleep more, which has helped with my recovery. Or something.
It's weird, when I get 8 hours of sleep, I actually feel refreshed and alert! I should try that someday when I'm not sick.
Haunted Trails was reasonably fun this year -- I was a guide again, as I usually am, and I made some this and that. I didn't go all out this year, though, taking a bit of a break.
As it turns out, there was not nearly enough hands on deck to build the show, or even run it except for the last night. Through superhuman efforts by Tall Matt and Paul (and Chip, and Andy...), and some skilled CSR workers I believe, the major mechanical room effects got built. Falling ceiling, sinking floor -- good stuff.
With Halloween falling on a Monday, well after the Saturday final run of Trails, I had enough time and energy to actually _do_ something for Halloween! Woo!
The week before, I submitted a unique pumpkin to the pumpkin "carving" contest: I made a foam-gelatin face from a lifecast mold I had laying around and deck-screwed it to the pumpkin.
On the inside, I made a foam-gelatin brain and covered it with bloody slyme. I named my pumpkin "Gloria". It was good. I'll put up pictures in the Haunt section soon.
Ooh, it wasn't until Marla asked me why I named it Gloria that I realized (remembered) that I name all of my female heads a 'G' name: Gladys, Grace, and now Gloria.
For my costume, I went as "the guy who made the Gloria pumpkin", in a homicidal-maniac theme. I sculpted a large-ish cut and cast it in foam-gelatin. For the first time, I got a good result from a gelatin prosthetic! The edges were thin and stretchy; the witch-hazel dissolved them into my skin; the spirit gum held it all down (though next time I'm trying prosthetic adhesive).
My only challenges was getting the makeup to blend, to be consistent across the prosthetic and my face. But it's easier with gelatin than with latex, and if I didn't have spirit gum residue on my skin, it probably would have been easier still.
Using some clever tweezers and a steady hand (hah!), I ran three safety pins through the wound and then decoreated it all in a bruised and bleeding fashion.
Then I liberally decorated myself with fake blood (on a white shirt, lovely and bright) and went on to win the scariest costume contest at work.
Sadly, the pictures I took at home don't show the face very well -- the safety pins are not very visible. I'm hoping I can find/get the picture they took at work of it. The bozos haven't posted anything to the web, though! I need to find a name and ask...
Monday I went to bed with a sore throat, which has persisted through to today; the sore throat bit has diminished but the germs have expanded into a cough, too. Whee.
I'm looking at doing a project referred to me by Wittlock Engineering - what may be a simple re-targetting of a program from old DOS to new DOS (plus possible enhancements; we'll see).
Outside of that, my only project this month is getting ready for Black Sash.
Oh, and school. I need to mail that contract in.
~bleh~
Posted by Edwin at November 3, 2005 10:44 AM