Black Mass

October 31 2022

Behind the Spooks

Each stained glass window was crafted for the bay window using thick black cardstock and coloured tissue paper. The design was marked out using a mechanical pencil and craft knife. I kept the cutouts to use as templates for the tissue paper, which were then attached to the cardstock with a wash of PVA glue. This was a rather time-consuming effort but looks amazing.

The summoning circle was constructed from a hula hoop that I spray painted black. The pentagram shape was created with red electroluminescent wire (be careful, this stuff stains) and secured in place with fishing wire.

For the Harry Potter-style floating candles, I used old toilet roll tubes, LED tea lights and some fishing wire. The toilet roll tubes are from "Who Gives a Crap" and are surprisingly-sturdy. They held three coats of white water-based paint with ease and had the added benefit of being white on the inside. These were glued together into longer cylinders with PVA glue. I pierced the top tube of each candle with a cocktail stick, so that the LED tea light could rest on top. This meant I didn't have to glue them in place and could easily access to swap out, or switch on/off. I applied a hot glue gun to secure the fishing wire in place and cover the cocktail stick piercing hole, but also dripped it around the candles to simulate a wax effect. They're hung outside with curtain hooks. This was also my first foray into bespoke electronics, with two LED Eagle Eye lights hidden away to create motivated lighting. These were pretty bright, so to counter that I masked them with some spooky fabric. Additionally this would blow in the wind to simulate a flickering effect, complementing the LED tea lights.

The candle display is a bunch of aged baby food jars. I used fine-grained sandpaper to scuff the jars and then dabbed black acrylic paint. Unlike the floating candles, I used real tea lights here as they were well-protected from the wind.

This work by Sam Hogarth CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Skull background by Hero Patterns

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