September 13th 2006

It's been a few days since I have been able to work on the Haunt.  I have not had the chance to head to the hardware store and look for paint for my gravestone.  I did get some time today to add some spiders to a few of the wall panels...

I thought that I would post some of the painting process that I used to add some 3D spiders to the wall panels.  I will be applying a lot of webbing in the hallways of the haunt, so a few nice looking spiders here and there add to the look.

There are a few steps missing from my photos...

I found some nice looking spider images on the internet and printed them out.  After applying some low tack frisket film to the printouts, I cut the outline of the spider's shadow and then the outline of the spider using a razor knife.  I ended up with 2 pieces of clear frisket film that I could use as stencils for painting my spiders.

I stuck the shadow stencil to the wall where I wanted my spider and then airbrushed a light coat of black paint over the stencil. I tried to make the tips of the legs in the shadow a bit darker than the rest.
The finished shadow does not have to be all that clean as it will be 90% hidden under the 2nd stencil. I applied the 2nd stencil (the spider cutout) over the shadow and aligned it so that the tips of the spider legs converged with the shadow tips.
Once I had it all aligned I airbrushed the entire stencil with black paint in a heavy coat to get the body and legs of the spider as dark as possible. Leaving the stencil in place, I airbrushed white spots on the legs and 2 body sections to give the spider a bit more detail.
When the 2nd stencil was removed I was left with a pretty nice looking 3D spider that is now permanently painted on to my wall panel.
I created several different spider stencils and painted a few spiders randomly throughout the haunt.  I had to remember to keep the shadows below the spiders since the majority of lighting in my haunt will be from above.   It is a small detail, but I think the spiders will look more realistic if the shadows are right.