First week at Disney, and yet I can actually post.... It's nuts! I'm having a lot of fun, but don't expect me to spoil the Magic here... well maybe a tidbit or two, but nothing in depth. 

(Tidbit of the month: Apparently The Tower of Terror costumes cost somewhere around $1400 a piece.)

So instead: MORE HALLOWEEN!

This monster is one of my faves, like a skele turned in to a scarecrow.

Found on Flicker, Image by Halloween Guy

Of Divination by Tarot.

Found on Flickr, Image uploaded by Museo del Tarot.

Museo Del Tarot Flickr Stream

I'm considering making a set of tarot or divination cards, that look ancient. Like, it should be falling apart in your hands, ancient. Like, so incredibly old, the paper is acting on par with cloth or leather. 

The paper should be thick, stained. The images drawn in ink and blanched watercolors, the language used should be a rarer language, the backs incredibly detailed. 

Oh yeah, it'll take a long time, but it sounds like fun. 

I don't actually beleive in divination, yet I own at least one set of divination cards. I use them in my still lives, but I think they are too shiny. Modern manufactured cards are sturdy, true, but they are too shiny and slick to fit in with a witch whose knowledge and tools has been handed down through several generations. Plus the clean-ness of the cards takes away from the effects I try to shoot for (grimy, unplanned, a whole lot of creepy). So I think I found a project I can do while in Anaheim that won't creep out my roommates too badly. I don't need my roommates going to the Disneyland heads and accusing me of devil worship. Although that would be a helluva funny story for you guys, wouldn't it?

Wait, its Disney: they'd accuse me of Chernabog worship. ;D

The Reaper

Small image, But Click-able, Sends you too a large version of the image.

Found on Photobucket, image by JaD__ 

I love his fingers... nice and long and creepy.

Santa Claws

Late for Christmas, but this is an awesomeness I HAVE to feature. Literally had a moment of "OMIGAWD AWESOME!" and woke up my husband in the other room and pissed my cat off.
I say its a great way to start up my featuring of other haunters again.
The holidays are dead and gone. Well... maybe not gone... rotting at least.
Santa Claws by Marrow.

Image and Monster by Marrow, can be seen at: http://marrowhouse.blogspot.com/

If I woke up X-mas morning too see this, I would have freaked the hell out, then laughed my ass off.
Marrow, I tip my hat to you buddy.

SICK!

No literally. I'm sick.
It really sucks.
I need a local apothecary shoppe that sells strange herbal teas that would work miracles on my sinuses and tonsils...

Found On Flickr, Image by Jing Tea Shop

I suppose my cabinet full of expired Celestial Seasonings will have to do. (yeah apparently tea bags expire, which totally sucks, but poor people can't be picky.)
Anyway, I hope you all are feeling better this fine New Years Eve-day. (awkward...) Be safe, don't drink and drive, and remember: always drive faster than your local demons can fly/run/scrape their talons across the ground.

Less than a month, Tron and Daft Punk.

And I'll be working at Disney.
Freaking crazy. It's hard to believe, but its happening.
So much to do.
Perhaps most appropriately, I finally saw and reveled in the visual and musical feast that is Tron: Legacy, It's an intense film, with a simple quest story that could have been deeper, as was if you knew where and had the presence of mind to look for the depth, but even short of that, I adored the movie, and its one of those films I can say is beautiful. Daft Punk's score is entrancing and addicting, and I now have it in CD form as my best friend bought it for me for my birthday/christmas. It's playing over my purple JVC flats headphones as I type this, the deep resonance of Arena rocking my ears with the awesomeness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFXYuw96d0c
I never thought I'd say "Daft Punks score" with reverence before, but trust me, its perfect.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my thoughts.

Christmas! Yay Christmas... is it Halloween yet?

Image by Strublay

Everyone here at Casa Strublay wishes you a Merry Christmas. 

Image by Strublay

Just a little bit of Halloween, just a smidge. *grin*

Where'd she go??

Life hit me with combat boots on...
I hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving, and Hanukkah.
Just wanted to let you all know I'm not dead. Yet. lol.
But! Strublay posting on BH will be non-existent through my birthday.
Yeah. Birthday. LOL.
God Help me.
I hope there are pumpkins. OH! AND CARROT CAKE! *SQUEE* I LOVE CARROT CAKE!
Anyway, so we'll be back to normal operations sometime after the 15th.
Pretty pictures and all.
Fair warning, there will be leather masks, and carnivals, and some very dark Christmas carols.
Muahaha.

Taking a break

Image by Strublay

I just need a little time to get some things under control, so Beautiful Halloween will quiet a bit over the next two to three weeks. If you want to get a dose of Halloween goodness, see the blog list on the right, or visit the forum,  I'll post occasionally, but the once a day thing is going on the decline for a while.
Yours Aye,
~~~Strublay~~~

Aura of Foreboding 2010

Found on Halloweenforum.com, Image by Aura of Foreboding

Okay, so the story, apparently, is that this dude threw up this incredibly detailed and well lit display in the four days leading up to Halloween.

Holy Crap.

I think that would be awesome, you incidentally drive by a house one day, and then drive by that house 4 days later and a decrepit cemetery has cropped up in the interim. So cool. 

Detail in this picture that I LOVE: on the right of the picture above the window is the outline of a human head. That was cool to find.

Found on Halloweenforum.com, Image by Aura of Foreboding

The lighting on these Stones are beautiful, I LOVE how the lighting is placed to draw shadows in to the engravings, and all of the organic shapes from the old branches. Also the blues punctuated by the green tombstone, and the warm oranges of the lanterns.

Found on Halloweenforum.com, Image by Aura of Foreboding

Again with the beautiful lighting. 

Lesson: Lighting matters, as does texture. 

Go see more of this awesome-ness.

Voodoo on the Bayou 2010

Found on Photobucket, image by voodooonthebayou

Found on Photobucket, image by voodooonthebayou

Found on Photobucket, image by voodooonthebayou

Of the Grim Hollow in the year of our lord two thousand and ten

First post about you guys! YAY!

Unt! Zee honor iz goingz to Grim Hollow Haunt. 

Why? Have you seen their pumpkin line up photos?

Found at http://grimhollowhaunt.blogspot.com, Image by Grim.

Found at http://grimhollowhaunt.blogspot.com, Image by Grim.

Look that that.... ooooooohhhh so pretty. This blogger loves the pumpkins, so how can I NOT start off with some of the best photographed pumpkins?

Found at http://grimhollowhaunt.blogspot.com, Image by Grim.

I adore how dark it is, the grimness of the chained coffin. 

Found at http://grimhollowhaunt.blogspot.com, Image by Grim.

That is just creepy. incredibly creepy. The clouds and the amber lighting combining for a really beautiful, haunting photograph. 

100?! ALREADY?

 100 posts!

To celebrate: 8 pictures of the witches kitchen and 2 pictures from my display!

Thanks to those of you who come to my blog, you people are awesome. 

Image by Strublay

Image by Strublay

Image by Strublay

Image by Strublay

Image by Strublay

Image by Strublay

Image by Strublay

Image by Strublay

Image by Strublay

Image by Strublay

We has Policy? Oh yes, yes we has.

Alright, obviously there has been a touch of confusion, and I just want to clarify some of my personal policies dealing with my blog and some things about who I am.

Policy:

• If you email me, it is likely that your email will be automatically sent to my spam folder. I do not check my spam folder, so don't expect me to receive emails. This will not change, sorry. Maybe one day if this site becomes super popular (yeah right) I'll create an account just for this site, but until then, no emails please.
• If you wish to enlighten me about something that is Horror/Halloween/Prop Making related and/or "OMG AWESOME" -worthy, please feel free to let me know in a comment. I prefer verifiable links and or "Hey Strublay! Google this..."
• Understand that what ends up on full blog posts is at my discretion, just because you throw it on the comments, does not mean I'll do a full post featuring what you sent me. If your link or search term proves to be reliable, however, I will allow the comment to be posted.
• My typical sources are HalloweenForum.com, Flickr, Photobucket, ect. So if you are shy, just post your pictures on one of those sites and I'll probably run across them during my daily scans of a bunch of sites for cool pictures
• If you see that something has been improperly attributed, please let me know in a comment.
• Yes I post a lot of my own pictures. It is my blog after all. ^_^

I honestly appreciate your understanding regarding these matters.

About me:
I am an artist and college student here in the Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. I am dual majoring in IT and 'Arcane Herbology and Spellcasting'. I am an artist that does a lot of prop making (which encompass all forms of art, really) and it is safe to say I go through phases. I was born here in Las Vegas, raised here, and I love my oddball city. I lived in Arizona for a short time, and thats when my obsession with Halloween really began to blossom. I have been obsessed with the aesthetic of Halloween ever since.

My nickname, Strublay, originated from my technical theater days in High School, we were doing a play by Brecht, and my director/teacher was a smart alack and altered my first name to one that was in the play in question and used it as my nickname for the duration of the play. My cohorts in the tech department decided that my last name needed to fit in too, as my first and last name were already odd. After the play only my last name stuck around, Strublay. After I graduated, I started using it as my pen name on my less interesting blogs That no longer exist.

Oreo wished to say hi.

Image by Strublay, of Oreo

"WTF do you want? hm? Get that f&*%#@$ camera out of my face!"

She's a little, twitchy eye'd princess. 

I wasn't planning on doing a cat-post, but she wanted to say hello, and her way of doing that is prancing across the keyboard while I attempt to post, typing a few dozen different characters on her way. 

So to directly quote my cats typing "1qwedergfhyj6y7i8ukkimjo;lp"

That sort of entertaining thing is a LOT of fun when I'm coding. Joys. LOL'z

Oh, and she also tried to add a Label whilst chasing after my hand for pets.

I deleted those.

Your welcome. 

She has also been "helping me" put some of the Halloween stuff away today, mainly the Paper Bats, the B&W Skeleton in the porch window, the paper Happy Halloween Banner. 

And by helping I mean laying on the 3 yards of black fabric I use to hide crap during my Photo-sessions in the dining room and mucking them up with white cat fur. Oh AND ripping the holy hell out of one of the bats. Luckily it was one of the newer ones, and not one of the funky ones my mother made.

Speaking of things my mother made: The paper graveyard is still up, and I'm thinking about framing it to preserve it for coming years. I'm really hesitating pulling it down because of how sensitive it is. 

I kinda want to replicate it, and laminate or seal that to preserve the graveyard as a window decoration. 

I just don't want the original to dis-integrate, its a classic thing, a memory from my past, and its really really beautiful. 

So I figure my November Non-school, non-house cleaning crafty projects are going to be knitting scarves, making some cool, easy to hang, Christmas light decorations and replicating the paper graveyard. Outside of that is packing and end-of-year purging. 

Jack, a quick tool tip, and Disney.

Image by Strublay

Long live the Pumpkin King! 

Come on, did you think that with 3 ghost pumpkins I wouldn't have ONE dedicated to Jack? 

How To Moment: I HATE the plastic things for cutting away the skin of my pumpkins, I like using Linoleum cutters instead.  Linoleum cutters can be found in art stores in the printing area. All you need to pick up are the blades and a handle, and there is really no need to purchase the fancy handle, just pick up the cheap wooden one by speedball. I used just a #2 Speedball Linoleum cutter blade to do Jack and Scarz. 

I've always had a fascination with Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, and I tend to have a Christmas themed around Tim Burton's exploration of what might happen if Halloween and Christmas collided. 

I also have a fascination with all things Haunted Mansion, but that goes w/o saying. 

So, what are you getting at Strublay?

Well I'm also taking my time posting on other Haunters for very specific reasons. 

First: In January I start an 8 month internship with Disney at the Disneyland Resort. So you can bet that there will be a gap of posting come mid-January. I'll be extremely busy with the move to Anaheim, and my first few weeks of work will be exhausting.

Second: My Sig. Other and I are considering houses at the moment. So while I'm in Anaheim, I'll also be coordinating a house move via phone webcam and weekly or bi-monthly visits. 

Countdown from MickeyPath.com

My 2011 is going to be insane, so I'm using HalloweenForum.com as my main resource and STUFFING my favorites folder to the brim with photo-sets from my fellow Halloween fanatics displays. So lets see if this works out.

Scarz of countless fights

Image by Strublay

Scarz, Halloween Night.

Taking Halloween geekery to the next level. POSSIBLY TMI.

I hit up a wallyworld today, and they had a 75% off sale of every Halloween item in the store...... I picked up a shirt, and two pairs of Halloween Underwear.
They are soft, and comfy, and orange and black stripey.
*Supremely amused laughter*

Scarz

Image by Strublay

Scarz, on Halloween Eve.

He was the one that took the longest to figure out, I wanted to use the natural features and scars on the pumpkin to my advantage, so I had his mouth grow together, and his eye deformed..... worked out great I think.

Old books, Incense smoke, and Jars

Image by Strublay

I love this picture because of the incense smoke.