Merry Christmas from The Crop

I've traveled to my hometown for Christmas to visit family.  Back in 2021, I gave them some of my Halloween props from that year's yard haunt. 

I had forgotten, until I walked into the basement den...

My corpsecrows have been Christmas-ified by my mother! Such a fun surprise! Look how excited they are for the holidays. 

I always figured that I'd be the only one in my family with a basement full of dead bodies... Turns out my mother beat me to it. 

At least I know where I get it from. 

100 Days Until Halloween

Been looking back on what little footage I took of last year's haunt.  Most of it was lost on the corrupted card, and what was left wasn't great.  Though I eventually scrapped the idea of doing a video, I thought I'd share the small clip below.  Watching it back is getting me pumped to decorate again this year.

Speaking of which, I met with the neighbor whose house I'll be decorating.  While our meeting was brief, he seems to be a cool guy; basically told me to go wild in his yard.  

His yard, by the way, is perfect.  It's set farther back from the road, is darker, and has several trees throughout. The driveway/sidewalk to the front door will make a wonderful walk-up for the haunt.  I'm very enthusiastic about this year.

Photosynthesis

Re-edited daytime shot of a corpsecrow from last year.

Halloween 2021 Sketches

When planning a Halloween display, I doodle any ideas or designs in a little notebook that I try to keep on my person at all times.  Here are some of those sketches from last year's display, Crop of the Faceless Spirit.

On the top right, you can see an unused design of an
upside-down pelvis/spine/ribcage tied to a bindrune (my icon)

I toyed with the idea of the Faceless Spirit having arms and a ribcage.
I hadn't come up with a proper name for the haunt at this point.

Victims beneath the tree were going to be accompanied by "Stubby",
 but I ended up tying him to a tree among the other corpsecrows.

One more corpsecrow design and my concept
for the little tripod lanterns

(As usual, shoutout to Pumpkinrot for a lot of the inspiration for these props and associated fabrication techniques.)

I've begun sketching designs for Halloween 2022, and am testing a few new methods for my props.  Here's hoping it will all come together in time (less than 200 days left!)

Halloween 2021: Crop of the Faceless Spirit

Since the disappearances, peculiar things have begun to grow.

Usually, there's just one, sprouting from the earth like a cursed sapling.

But sometimes, they're found in hellish groves; 

Grotesque orchards of anthropomorphic vegetation.

And why do they always look so... familiar?

I am beyond excited to (finally) share my first official yard display!  I would have posted these photos sooner, but a corrupted SD card threw a wrench in those plans.  After two weeks of on-and-off recovery attempts, I finally have some stuff to share.

Click on each picture for full-size

And below, the scene of the ritual:  Innocents left to die, an offering to the Faceless Spirit, only to be re-grown as part of the Crop.

And here are a few daytime shots:

Huge shoutout to Pumpkinrot and his blog; a wealth of yard haunt knowledge and inspiration.  Shoutout to my sister for helping to carve so many pumpkins only a day before Halloween.

I learned a lot through reading blogs and forum posts, and through trial and error.  Not everything came out exactly as I had hoped/imagined, and there are plenty of things that I wont be doing the same way in the future.  But overall, I am quite pleased with my first display.  Everyone starts somewhere!