Speaking of scaring the

(blank) out of me. Here is the latest spider update.

He is hanging in the patio scaring the wits of me and hopefully any would be robbers :)

I wish I could take credit for this piece, but it s group effort....actually most the work of two of our best minions - Dan and Elyssa. Any helper that takes a prop home to work on it....for weeks, yeah, that is dedication. Thanks guys! You are the best!

Here is what I know.

The body, is that dreadful "white turd", as the Banshee so eloquently put it (I miss working with that sense of humor every day), that I created a month or so ago. The angle of the body was wrong so we cut it in two pieces, but the thorax at a bit of an angle and glued them back together. We put expanding foam in to fill the cracks.

I covered it with MMM (modified monster mud - includes glue) to help give it the smooth shape and make it less likely to crumble. Note to graveyard -remember use extruded (pink/blue) foam next time....that pilled foam is nearly impossible to sand smooth - you knew this, what were you thinking? :)

Then they used a filler to fill in any divots in the body and sanded it smooth....very smooth, since it will be shinny, any imperfection would show.

Then, we (I mean they) began the very labours process of making the legs. We tried several ideas (the last ones were carved out of pink foam, which uncoated is very weak and did not hold up to a month out in the weather in the northwest.)

This year we experimented with Friendly Plastic. Cool stuff, boil it, dye it and shape it. All kinds of awesome!

The first legs were made exclusively out of the plastic molded around the wire, which looked good, but where very heavy.

It was decided after a lot of debate to find some kind of thin tubing in attach the plastic to that fit over the leg wires.

At this point, we all know a lot more about spiders than we ever (certainly more than I ever wanted) and find that my legs with the original 3 bends, were wrong, they need at least four. And the length of the legs, although great of for a cartoon drawing, the legs in the front and back are longer that the middle legs.

When they brought over the modified version with the new legs...I almost wet myself. It was way too real. Why, why did you do that!!! The cartoon version was safe....frog queen safe.

I think to myself "I am not sure I can have this new one in the yard."

Anyway, the new leg design used a lot less plastic and were lighter (in comparison.) Dan used magnets to attach the legs, cause Dan thinks everything should be attached with magnets, rare earth magnets. :)

He is painted glossy black, we left his legs colored with just the pigment in the plastic to make it look more organic. We were afraid too shiny would make it look like plastic spider.

The inside of the body has a motor for turning the cocoon that he will be spinning....a cocoon that has a rather large fly in it ......or is that......do I see a head and arm.....?!?!?!

"Help me,! Help me!" :D