Description: In the first chamber, I have alien specimins in jars. For the jars, I used glass yogurt jars I collected over time (I make a lot of yogurt drinks. My wife asked me why I was clutering the kitchen with all these jars and when I told her, she just rolled her eyes and walked away). For the alien specimins, I used Sculpey modeling plastic. Now, I am by not means a sculptor, so if I can make these things, so can you. I think the key to making something passible is just a little patients and some creative detail. The creatures looks a lot like the face hugger from Ailen. Actually, since it crawls out of an egg that looks a lot like the egg from Alien, I guess it is a face hugger. I am not worried about plagerizing here. If the kids recognize it, then it should evoke fear since those things are pretty nasty (and emotion is what it is all about, not originality. I don't think James Cameron will mind). Anyway, I made the things out of Sculpey and cloths-hanger wire.
I wanted the alien to fill the jar, so I knew I would have to fold it up to get it in the jar, then unfold it and fix it up a bit before baking it (Sculpey bakes in a normal oven at 275 degrees). No problems. I then put it in my cold oven and very slowly brought the temperature up. I likewise let the oven cool very slowly (I have found that it is actually rapid cooling that tends to break hot glass). Success! Or so I thought.
Now, in life your are going to have good ideas and bad ideas. The trick is to identify the bad ideas before you actually implement them. I failed to identify this bad idea before spending plenty of time making my hard plastic alien that can no longer be removed from the glass jar. What did I not think through? How the heck am I going to paint this thing let alone not get paint all over the jar? My after-the-fact solution...patience. Lots of it. I shoved a papertowl in the jar to protect the glass, made a bent brush (I yanked off the tip of a wooden brush and stuck it on the end of a wire) and proceeded to paint a small piece, let it dry, then paint another small piece, bending the brush at different angles each time to reach different areas.
I had to paint everything one color but that will be fine for what I want to do with it. Ya, I missed a few spots but it won't matter. The last step will be to fill the jar with water and dip the tip of a green highlighter pen in the water for a few minutes to make the water glow green under black light.
I also made a "guardian stalk", an egg and a partially dissected egg with an embryonic face hugger thingy. For that, I used some clear bathroom caulk for some goo oozing from the cuts.
I put the things in the jars, used hot glue to hold them to some plastic stands that I spray painted silver, and filled the jars with water (except the last one which, again, I filled with Derek's glowing potion. For lighting I used a strand of fading white Christmas lights and a black light. Worked pretty good.
