Halloween 2022 – Robot Costume Shop

porch scene with shelves of masks based on classic movie and television robots. In the foreground are five robots wearing costumes: taxi, spam, fire hydrant, traffic light, and "not a robot" written on a bag.

This involved the most amount of research I have done yet for a scene. First week, shelves of robot masks hang in the back of the porch. Each shelf a different era or genre of robots in the media (not a comprehensive list, they all come from movies and shows I watched at some point.) After the first week, other robots began to appear in the foreground, all of a particular retro style. In the final scene, the robots in the foreground are wearing costumes that reference everyday elements from bot-blocking captcha challenges.

Halloween 2021 – Trick or Treating in a Dragon’s Cave

Porch with a scene in a cave of a dragon confused by a small child in a sheet carrying a jack-o-lantern goodie bag.

Spent a lot of time researching caves and dragons for this display. This year benefitted from a new source of large sheets of cardboard (no more skulking around the back of Sears hoping someone bought a new fridge.) The scene emerged over a few weeks: first the cave, then the dragon, then the trick or treating ghost. Despite finding themselves deep in a cave, facing a dragon, this kid seems unperturbed in their search for chocolate.