Update: First Tombstones

So in my uber procrastinating form, I took my day off today to work all of 30 minutes on my tombstone project. I have two stones in the works at the moment. One is my very first stone, that is my Southern Vampire character "Bill Compton" tribute. My original vision is different than what I actually have now. It is a very basic stone with the Death Head on top and simply stating "William Thomas Compton    1840-186blah".

 I hand-carved the name and letters with a box cutter style knife. It being my first ever attempt I see every single screw up with the lettering. Also the numbers proved to be extra difficult for me. I used a "crack in the stone" to help hide my major screw up with the death date. I decided on this stone not to monster mud it, only because a) the drill I have is not powerful enough to mix it and b) I expect to redo this stone next year to match my original vision for it.
For Father's Day this year my wife and kiddos got me a "Wagner Project Sprayer" as a gift:

                                    

So today gave me the prime opportunity to try it out. I loaded up some black latex paint and sprayed a base coat on the stone.                                        

 

This weekend, since I have a 3 day weekend, we'll finish this stone up. (I know I say that now, but I plan on it this time.)

My second stone is in honor of our good friend Annie in Colorado. My wife has a theory as to why I am doing this stone... you see Annie and I had a huge falling out a few weeks ago over the difference between a scone and a beignet... (actually it was because of the way I pointed this difference out, but that's another story)... my wife says that this stone is as close to an apology as she will ever get from me... she's probably right... so Annie likes cats so I wanted to try a technique out that I've seen on bunches of stones... so after I cut the shape of the stone, I took out the dremel tool and carved this into it:

                              

I used the router attachment and a router bit. I think it turned out well. Then I decided that since I already had the dremel tool out, why not use it to carve the name and epitaph. So this is what I came up with:

                                          

In case the picture isn't clear it says, "Annie M  Loving wife of Brian A Voorhies 1878 - "  I didn't do the base coat today because I still have some detailing I want to do. Hopefully that will be done before the weekend and I will also finish this one. (I am still debating on whether to Monster Mud it or not...)

I have enough foam for about three or four more stones, and enough pink foam for an obelisk. We'll see if i am ambitious enough for that. More to follow, but until then....

Happy Haunting!!!!

~Bill