Obscura Antiques & Oddities

Good morning Frightners!

I constantly keep getting reminded how cool it is to work and live near New York because if there is something special you need or are looking for (especially for your haunt) you can find it in the city with a little detective work. Luckily I easily stumbled across this shop last night while watching tv.

Obscura Antiques and Oddities is located on 260 East 10th Street between 1st Avenue and Avenue A in New York City and as their name states they have an awesome collection of Antiques and Oddities for sale and they also have a tv show on the Science Channel detailing some of the crazy stuff that comes into their shop every day.

I was lucky enough to be flipping through the channels yesterday and caught the commercial for the show and saw that there was a mini marathon of it on last night starting at 9pm so I decided to watch and was instantly hooked! Seeing how I am doing a traveling gypsy carnival with sideshows and oddities I was very interested to see some of the offerings at the shop. But even if you have your own home or pro haunt you would still love almost everything in this shop.

The show is scripted somewhat like the show Pawn Starts (not Porn Starts kiddies!) Basically people from all walks of life come in either looking to buy something particular for example Electric Chairs, Monkey Skulls, Coney Island Side show memorabilia etc. OR they are there looking to sell a unique item of theirs. Some if the items I saw in the show last night that people brought were mummified ears, shrunken heads, a book made of human skin and a human thigh bone trumpet. It was pretty weird stuff but cool! You get to hear some of the history behind the objects how they were made, where they were found and then what they are worth. 

The shop does have a blog that you can follow and they will be offering a few of their items for online sale soon if you cannot make the trip to New York to visit them but I do suggest that if you are in the area that you make the time to go to New York and check them out. I will be headed there myself very soon and hope to walk away with some cool items for this years haunt.

I have attached their website and blog info below and there is a quick clip of their show for you to view. Again I highly suggest you check it out, its a fun show for people like us haunters and anyone who like the the weird, strange and macabre!

http://www.obscuraantiques.com/

http://www.ObscuraAntiques.Blogspot.com/

Contest Update..

Hey Frightners!

Just an update that the Freaky Friday Giveaway Contest is still running and will end on until Saturday the 23rd so there is still time to enter the mystery box prize!

There has been a GREAT response to this contest and I am really excited to pick the winner and reveal the prize to everyone. As I said before we have some great stuff to giveaway from vendors like mini-spot, frightprops, ghostride and more. The prizes will always be Halloween & Horror related and they will always be mystery box prizes so stay tuned every month for the Freak Friday Giveaway! Yes that is EVERY MONTH that you will have a chance to win some amazing stuff from us here at Grimlock Manor.

If you haven't entered than be sure to post your comment in the Giveaway post below..we have about 20 entries so far so join in the fun and have a chance to win some cool stuff! Also be sure to sign up and follow the blog!

I want to say a big thank you to some of my vlogging buddies out there who have shared information about this contest: dEdmonton TV, The Bloodshed Brothers, HauntoweeN, HalloweenHellmouth. I haven't caught all the vlogs lately so if you did happen to say happy birthday or mention the contest than I thank you as well.

Life has been a little hectic lately. My father had a minor heart attack this past week but is in the hospital and recovering well from it. I will still be keeping up the blog, vlogs and twitter as much as possible but for a short time the posts might be slightly less than once every day or two. I am sure my Frightners out there in Halloween Land will understand as we are all human and have to deal with the crazy speed bumps life throws at us from time to time. I don't normally share these personal details but since I have become closer friends with some of you on here I felt ok with keeping you in the loop.

So the show must go on! Expect me to be back with the contest results next week. I will try and sneak a post in here or there before then and for now let me leave you with the latest installment of dEdmonton TV below. I really think this is a great show that shares some great information from around the web dealing with our favorite holiday Halloween along with many other haunted goodies. Please check it out and subscribe!

Frightfully Yours,

Frightguy!

Freaky Friday Giveaway!

Hey Frightners!

Am I glad it is almost Friday! It's actually almost my Birthday! Yes I am happy to say that Sunday is my 31st birthday, yippie for me haha!

I was thinking about this birthday and you know how there are those few milestone birthdays in your life then there just seems to be all the ones in between? Well I actually like the number 31 because when you think about it the 31st is when Halloween is so my 31st birthday at least has that going for it, my most special day of the year which falls on the 31st is now my age. Big 31!

Anyhoo...In honor of it being my 31st birthday I felt like giving away a present. Why not share the wealth right?! I am not just going to be doing this giveaway this one time but I intend to keep it up and do it monthly and as the title of this post is called it will be named the "Freaky Friday Giveaway!"

Now once a month on a Friday of my choosing I will be doing the Freaky Friday Giveaway!" The post will be labeled Freaky Friday Giveaway! All you need to do to enter the Freak Friday Giveaway is leave a comment in that post and POOF! your entered! The cool thing about the prize is that it will be a mystery box! Now don't worry the prize will be something good and something that will almost always be haunt, Halloween or horror related. It may be a whole lot of little things or just one but you will simply have to leave a comment to enter to win. Please note..you can comment as much as you would like however you will only be counted one time. I will assign you a number by the order everyone posts so if you post first your #1 and so on and so forth.

Once a winner is picked (by random generator) and the prize is sent out I will reveal the gift the following Monday. I figure it's only fair to everyone to know what the prize was. Hopefully this will urge you to play each time.

I am running this giveaway for two weeks so there will be time to enter and time enough to get the word out. Simply leave a comment in this post, if you haven't subscribed to the blog yet then please subscribe and make sure you are available by email so if you win I can contact you and get your info to send you your Mystery Box Prize!

Good Luck Frightners!

The Freaky Friday Giveaway starts now!

Thomas Kuebler Creature & Character Sculptures.

Hey Frightners!

This past weekend was a good one for me as I got a lot of work done on one of my custom characters for this years haunt (new pictures coming soon.) We are adding a traveling gypsy carnival to Grimlock Manor this year. Last year we introduced the carnival theme ever so slightly into our always evolving storyline. We created one room dedicated to the carnival and everyone seemed to like it so much that this year it will be a full attraction apart from the mansion walkthrough we have been doing the past 3 years. So two shows in one!

I want to give a nod to Craig Schriber AKA Devils Chariot of both Haunted Tiki Island and this past years haunt The Haunt at Hellizondo. It was Craigs amazing work on his Russian themed Carnival of Risk that inspired the drive in me to do my own version. He and his minions do an amazing, AMAZING, job so if you haven't seen The Haunt at Hellizondo yet then go check it out HERE.

One of my biggest goals this year for the haunt is to really bring it to life with some custom made characters. We will of course have plenty of live actors but it's always nice to have those few static props to catch the eye of your patrons and for me it's fun to build them and learn new techniques as I go.

While looking for some inspiration I came across a wonderful Character Design artist by the name of Thomas Kuebler. Thomas spent over two and a half decades working in the corporate world of toy design prototyping and bringing robots to life in the animatronics field. Eventually Thomas set forth on a mission to bring the world inside his head to life by creating his very own highly detailed life size characters. His characters now have homes in various museums, private collections and have been featured in publications like Spectrum and Rue Morgue magazines.

I love the lifelike feel of his characters. Each character easily tells a story of their own and you can get lost in the amount of detail that Thomas puts into each of them from the clothing to each little unique accessory and prop that accompanies them. Below are only a few examples of his work but I invite you to take a look at his entire gallery on his WEBSITE and read more about Thomas and his work. I hope it inspires you to take a stab at making your own characters for your haunt this year as well!

Nuff Said..

Chivalry is Undead Series by Kira Shaimanova.

Hi Frightners!

Hope you guys like this post because I know I do! I've come to find that while writing this blog I am always keeping my eye out for cool and interesting content to post about other than my own haunt related stories but sometime it is hard to keep everything in the haunt/halloween/horror genre but I do find those gems sometimes like today!

Today I was reading the latest issue of CMYK MAG and they are presenting 100 works from some of today's most talented and emerging artists and to my delight I came across Kira Shaimanova. I was so impressed with her series "Chivarly is Undead" that I had to write about it on the blog.

Sculpted out of Clay, her "undead" characters are both disturbing and sweet at the same time. Each photo shows a zombie interacting with a human or animal. The scenes are fun and well set up and I think it is just amazing how much detail and life she brings to each of these little vignettes.

If you love these pictures and want to learn more about the Kira's process behind making her characters and shooting the photos than please mosey on over to her BLOG. She explains everything and seeing the creative process of any artist is always a real treat.

Enjoy the pics, get inspired and stay Frighful Frightners!

The Works of Thomas Ott

At least once a week I head up the block to my favorite comic shop to take a peek at what's out and what's new. There are a few main stream comics that I love to follow but I do like to take a peek at the Indie section and I am always looking at the art books to find inspiration.

Today I found the awesome works of Thomas Ott and I instantly became a fan. Thomas Ott is from Zurich Germany and he draws wordless scratchboard comics which in my opinion are pretty awesome. He most always uses silent cinema as a motif and his plot twists will delight fans of classic horror and will haunt you long after you've put the book down.

I invite you to go to his WEBSITE and take a look at his art (it's in German so you will need to use bablefish.) Also he has a FACEBOOK fan page that you can stroll on over to and see more of his work.

If your interested in buying any of his books you can at FANTAGRAPHICS I suggest R.I.P Best of 1985-2004 which I have pictured below. It's one of my newest favorites!

You never know when you will find a good suspense/horror story that will get those gears in your mind turning but today I found a whole book of them by Thomas Ott. I hope you will check them out and if you do please let me know what you think. There is some good stuff in there and for all you Halloween and Haunt fanatics I am sure you will both enjoy these stories and find some inspiration in them.