First - Disney's Haunted Mansion paper model from Haunted Dimensions

Disneyland Haunted Mansion in New Orleans Square, paper model from Ray Keim and Haunted Dimensions.

The main focus of this year's Halloween Village Display will be Ray Keim's New Orlean's Square Disneyland Haunted Mansion. This is a great paper model of the Disneyland Haunted Mansion, with an interesting use of transparency sheets for printing of the railings. I wanted something that would blend in better with the Disney toys I plan on using, so I enlarged the model 200% in Adobe Photoshop. This required 4 sheets glued together for each page of the original model, but it is making for an impressive build. You can find Ray's site in our list of favorite sites on the right, Haunted Dimensions. A must visit for any fan of Disney's Haunted Mansion.

I will be showing you several build pictures as this project progresses. Other models I will be using from Ray this year are the Conservatory Coffin, his tomb stones, and the entrance gate for the Disneyland New Orleans Haunted Mansion. Lots of other smaller models from other sites, but the focal point is this wonderful model.

New ideas for Our 2011 Halloween Village Display

We have been working all year on a new display for 2011, lots of photos to come. This year's display will feature a 200% scale up of the original Haunted Mansion from Disneyland, that's why we didn't feature that house in last year's display. Along with that this year will be a double decker affair. The display is divided into two levels. The top level (table top level) is similar to our normal displays in that it is an exterior diorama, but this year we are setting up the house and grounds around the Disney Haunted Mansion, taking some liberties of course. Included will be several Disney character toys and some new effects.

Below this we have the interior of the Haunted Mansion, using as many paper models as we could find, showing 4 rooms from the ride recreated as larger scale dioramas. In my next post I will begin to document the construction of the enlarged Haunted Mansion paper model.

Ectomobile Ecto-1 and the right side of the 2010 display

Ecto-1 Ectomobile from Ghostbusters paper model. The trick or treaters are paper cutouts from clip art.

The Disney Liberty Square Haunted Mansion in back with the Up roof in front.
Notice the stick on ghosts on the window glass

Here are two shots showing the right side of the Halloween Village window display. The top image shows the Ectomobile from the Ghostbusters movies, along with the only un-haunted house in the display, the house from the animated movie Up (well almost un-haunted, we did add a ghost coming out of the chimney).

The second picture shows the area behind the Ectomobile, on the left is our larger ceramic candle holder (with a color changing light inside) and on the right the Disney Haunted Mansion from Paris Disney, Liberty Square. The ghosts you see flying in front of the display are a couple of gel stickies stuck to the inside of the glass. This brings the viewer right up to the ghosts, or the other way around.

Stay Puff Marshmallow Man positioned in the village

Stay Puff Marshmallow Man Paper Model from Ghostbusters.

Here is a nice shot of the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. In a previous post I talked about making this paper model. Here he is in his final position in the Halloween Village window display. The haunted house that he is terrorizing is a ceramic candle holder, you put the candle in from the back and the windows light up. The Phantom Manor is in the back and on the far left is the Bates House. You can just see Slimer on the right. The bridge in front is another store bought item and the large haunted house on the top right is another ceramic candle holder. That house was what started this whole hobby of creating Halloween Villages.

The Bates House in the Halloween Village

Here is the Bates House  from Psycho in its Halloween Village display location. To the left is another haunted house. Several of the Ghosts you see are simply paper cutouts from clip art. The fence along the front is a store bought Halloween Decoration, same for the two Trick or Treaters to the right of the fence. Running up the walkway is a line of lighted Skulls, also store bought. There are a few nice items in the craft stores every year for Halloween, and we have been buying one or two items each year, giving us a nice collection of additional decorations to spice up our village. We mostly look for accessory items, like fences and bridges. The main structures and decorations are always hand made.

Here is the same view with the special effects lighting. The purple color is from the black light, you can now easily see the Phantom Manor in the background lit by street lights. Notice how the paper in the Bates House glows under the black light. Basically, the lighter the area (less ink) the more the glowing affect. Blank Paper glows nicely, so anything made out of paper glows well under black light. Real easy to see the lighted skulls along the walkway in this image as well.

Phantom Manor with lighting

Here is the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man and the Phantom Manor in the display with lighting effects.

There is a black light in front of the whole display, some color changing lights on the sides (lighting StayPuff green on the left at the moment) and some practical street lights. You can see two street lights above the entrance gate to the Phantom Manor in the back. It really all comes down to the lighting, although I put a lot of time and effort into the models for my displays, even basic models and toys look great with good lighting.

Adding Phantom Manor to Window Display

Here is the Phantom Manor Paper Model added to our Window Display Halloween Village. This shot is after all of the additional detail items have been added around the model.

Phantom Manor Paper Model

Notice the Staypuff Marshmallow Man in the foreground. The ghost above the gate is a stick-on from the scrap book section of Michaels Arts and Crafts, the Trick 'n Treater in the gate is a paper cutout from some clip art. The Skeleton Bear on the left is a small stuffed toy. You can just make out the camouflage drop cloth beneath the Skeleton Bear that I laid down over the entire table to act as a ground cover. These drop cloths work great, once you put some stuff on them and light the display, they just blend in.