All Hallows Read Posters 2016

September is the stepping stone to October and we all know what that means. Time to get ready for All Hallows Read. What better way than with a free poster or five?

This is my sixth year making free posters for anyone to share and use to advertise All Hallows Read. Free! 

I'm trying something a bit different by hosting the files at dropbox. They're also at deviantart, if that's easier to download off of.

I don't put a year on any of the posters, so you can reuse any of the old ones you'd like such as:

2015 - Trees, Haunted Globe, Bats, and More

2014 - Raven, Grave Reflection, and more

2013 - Fairy Witch, Tentacle, and others

2012 - Spiders and Bats and Mummies

2011 - Universal Hammer Monsters 

You can download the whole lot for this year from a file here right now if you'd like. I also included all of the past years in the dropbox file so you can add whatever you want whenever.

Now let's get to the new ones!

Pumpkin - Nothing says Halloween quite like a carved gourd (unless you've got a turnip around, pedantic)

Bones -You never know what you find when you open a book.

Tombstone -  I wanted this one to feel like those old book covers from the 70's and 80's. Haunted nostalgia.

Graveyard -  A statue reading a book inside a cemetery inside a book. Don't Blink, you might miss the best parts.

Bloody Wall -  Sometimes you just need giant eyeballs, spiders and a touch of gore. It's Halloween, let's get spooky.

Once again, they're all free, all of 'em. So download the links, print, and decorate to your heart's content.

Enjoy!

Refreshing Halloween Props

It's that time of year when I'm haunting through every store to get a taste of their Halloween treats. A few have gone -- Michaels, Menards, Home Depot, Spirit -- but a lot are waiting until Labor Day is dead and in the ground. *twitches thumbs*

While some things I buy as is a few often need a little bit of help so this weekend I took a few props and made them awesomer.

First was a Cyclops skull from Spirit. It's neat that it's ol' cyc with its mammoth skull influence but the fact it's a blowmold and the painting is meh I decided it needed some flesh.

It was a simple case of dipping paper towels in latex then spreading it across the skull.

After the latex dried, I just painted it. First I used a wood stain for the base but that was too light so I mixed in some brown and black acrylic with my sponge to give shadows and depth.

Cyclops looks a lot gooier now.

My other find came from Home Depot. A fun little secret is that it's really easy to get those cheap ass looking tombstones and turn them into something cool. All you need is paint and a sponge.


I found one with a carving I liked, but the paint job was meh sliding into snooze town.

First I added a layer of brown. Brown is vital to giving depth to tombstones. I know, that seems stupid, but trust me. If you want to mimic the look of old stone, brown helps to not only age but give it a heft.

After that, it was various shades of black or grey depending upon if I wanted to lighten or shadow a section.

Instantly better tombstone I managed in about an hour. When I don't have the time to carve one myself (which can take days to a week), I like to get a cheap one and fix it myself. The liberal application of paint can make any store bought tombstone look ten times better.