Nic Chappell

This year’s Treehouse of Horror Halloween cutouts include Homer from “The Shinning”, Snail Lisa, the Frog Prince, and Groundskeeper Willie as Freddie Krueger. They are a life sized, and most have an audio clip as an additional interactive element.

Materials

I try to make the cutouts life size whenever possible. Standard 4′ x 8′ sheets of plywood are big enough for most of the characters I’ve made. However, my vehicle doesn’t have a big enough cargo area to fit a full sheet, so I have to get them ripped down to fit in the trunk. When necessary I’ll “stitch” the sheets back together to create a large enough workspace.

I like this 1/4″ SurePly brand of plywood. It’s more expensive than alternatives, but it cuts clean and barely chips when carving the cutouts. Much easier to paint when edges are smooth and splinter free.

Stitching together multiple pieces of plywood. Using various scrap pieces, I cut 4″ strips, overlap them on the seams, and weighted down using whatever heavy things I have laying around so the wood glue creates a solid bond.

Template

I’ll source images from various places online. The most memorable characters are easily found with a simple Google search. Screenshots from individual episodes are another convenient source. When necessary I will do some minor image editing to isolate characters and fill in missing details.

Once I have my characters isolated I use Adobe Illustrator to create full size templates that I project onto the plywood sheets.

Illustrator makes it easy to create a workspace using inches as a unit of measurement, and work with full size artboards.

Tracing

I project the templates onto the plywood sheets. With a pencil I trace all the outlines and other details I want to capture.

Using a Magnum Sharpie I add a thick outline to the tracings. This provides a buffer for uneven cutting, and ensures there’s enough space for the paint to create smooth lines.

Cutout

Using a router with a cutting bit I carve the characters out of the plywood sheets.

I used masking tape to mark the rough outlines of where my workbench is positioned underneath the plywood. The idea was to mark the no cut areas. It didn’t work as well as I had hoped.

The only major mistake while cutting. The router snagged some tape and I cut into one of the rake tines. It will have to be slightly shorter than originally traced.

Finishing

Once everything is cut out, I sand the edges smooth and clean up any rough spots before painting.

Paint

I use a matte or flat black spray paint to coat the back of each cutout, matte acrylic paints on the front, and finish both sides with a matte clear coat spray paint.

Display

To stand the cutouts I make 1″ x 1″ dowels by ripping down 2x4s. The smaller cutouts are mounted directly on a dowel, and the larger cutouts are mounted on frames made from the dowels.

Audio

Most of the characters get an audio clip from their episode. I download the source clip from YouTube, use iMovie to trim it and export just the audio, and use Audacity when I need to do any additional editing.

“The Shinning” Homer

From the “The Shinning” segment of Treehouse of Horror V, a parody of Jack Torrance’s famous axe-wielding bathroom door scene from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

Audio

I was able to use iMovie to get a clean cut of the audio I wanted, and it’s good enough that I don’t need to do any additional editing.

“I’m Mike Wallace, I’m Morley Safer, and I’m Ed Bradley! All this and Andy Rooney tonight on 60 Minutes!”

I used a Waytronic motion sensor speaker so that I can place it near the front door. The sensor will notice when someone walks past and play the recording.

Loading audio requires connecting the device to my computer with a USB cable, and a simple drag and drop of the .mp3 file into the root directory.

Snail Lisa

Bart finds a book of magic and casts a spell (made up of the last names of TV detectives) that accidentally turns Lisa into a snail from the “Dial ‘Z’ for Zombies” segment of Treehouse of Horror III.

Audio

The source video doesn’t have a clear quote that makes sense on its own. Without the video the context is lost, so snail Lisa doesn’t get an audio clip.

Frog Prince

The Frog Prince is a failed attempt of wizard student Bart to cast the frog-to-prince spell in a brief, but memorable appearance from the “Wiz Kids” segment of Treehouse of Horror XII.

I was able to use every shade of green paint I had available

Purposefully sloppy around the edges to minimize uneven paint buildup as I apply additional coats of paint

Audio

I used iMovie to clip out the audio segments I wanted.

After some fiddling I isolated 3 clips from the original video clip.

“Blargh”

“Please kill me”

“Every moment I live is agony”

Using Audacity I combined the “blargh” with each of the other clips using a crossfade effect.

“Blargh, please kill me”

“Blargh, every moment I live is agony”

Groundskeeper Willie

From the “Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace” segment of Treehouse of Horror VI, where Groundskeeper Willie is dressed as Freddy Krueger.

Painting the bigger cutouts tends to be easier because I can use large brushes to cover wide areas without being overly cautious

All the blank spots filled with at least one coat of paint

Purposefully overlapping with the black outlines to avoid uneven build up of paint around edges

Adding additional layers of paint and refining edges

Done with painting after the finishing touches

I add at least four light layers of clear coat the course of an hour or so; one spraying each from the top, from the left, from the right, and from the bottom

Mounted and installed with a spotlight on a moonless night

Audio

There is only one audio clip from the segment that matches the cutout I made.

The source clip I downloaded from YouTube already had a good starting point, so all I needed to do was trim the ending. I want my clip to end when the laughing does, before Bart starts screaming. I used iMovie to trim the video where I wanted it to end and exported just the audio.

There is a brief crossover between the laughing and the swiping sound effect, so to get a clean cut I have to trim the clip with an awkward cutoff. To compensate I used Audacity to apply a fade out effect.