HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY HAUNTED DIMENSIONS!

Ten years ago today (September 26, 2004) Haunted Dimensions was unveiled! What started out as a hobby has grown into an online entity with a life of its own. HD has opened doors I never dreamed of, including being a primary catalyst for becoming a theme park entertainment designer for Universal Orlando. Few things are more amazing to me than meeting people in the theme park industry who say, “You’re THAT guy?!” when they discover that I am the creator of Haunted Dimensions!
As always, I want to thank all of you who support my work, and many of you who have been “Dimensioneers” since the early days!
Thank you!
Ray - 9/26/14

Haunted Dimensions 10th Anniversary Tee!

Show your support for Haunted Dimensions (by Ray Keim), by celebrating a decade of haunted art and projects in 3D! This T features Ray's haunted illustrations from the past decade. 
Design will be screen printed on

Premium Ringspun Tee ($14.00)

Get it here!

Happy Birthday to Disneyland's Haunted Mansion!

Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955, without a haunted mansion.   
Within three years, Walt decided to expand Disneyland, to include a new land called "New Orleans Square", which would contain new shops, restaurants, and a haunted mansion.   The foundation for the façade of the Plantation style haunted mansion took place in 1962.   
Early concepts for a neglected looking house were replaced with Walt's preference, a clean, well-preserved façade, which matched the pristine look of the rest of the park.   Walt said "We'll take care of the outside and let the ghosts take care of the inside".
Even though the façade was completed, it was an empty shell for years due to storyline problems and other distractions such as the 1964 New York World's Fair, where Disney built the first version of "It's a Small World", among other state of the art attractions.

On December 15, 1966, Walt Disney died of lung cancer.

With the loss of their great visionary, the Imagineers debated over design concepts for the haunted mansion, such as whether the haunted mansion experience should be scary, or funny.   In the end, imaginers Marc Davis (funny), and Claude Coats (scary), combined their ideas, so the ride begins with spooky sets and chilling concepts, and eventually becomes "a swinging wake", full of silly spooks, and ghostly gags.
Finally, after years of planning the New Orleans Square Haunted Mansion opened its doors, on August 9, 1969.

Thank you, Uncle Walt, for creating the haunted mansion(s), which inspired me (and many others) to pursue a career in theme park entertainment design!

Hogwarts Paper Model Prospectus

My Hogwarts castle paper model kit is still languishing in the license netherworld. As a last resort I put together this little site to describe my intentions to any possible investors or Warner Bros Licensees. Unless this model get licensed, it WILL NOT be released to the public. Pass around the link. It couldn't hurt. http://www.raykeim.com/Hogwarts_model.html

The Haunted Studio is Awesome!

I want to give a shout to a long-time affiliate of Haunted Dimensions, Lewis Barrett Lehrman and his site "The Haunted Studio". Mr Lehrman's stunningly beautiful and spooky haunted house watercolor paintings have been inspiring me for years. Mr Lehrman recently announced his (semi) retirement from the site, but his work is still available. Please browse his work and buy one!  http://www.hauntedstudio.com/Gallery1.htm

The Contemporary Hotel's new California Grill

The other day I was at the California Grill, on top of the Contemporary Hotel at the Magic Kingdom. It is amazing how small the Magic Kingdom looks from this vantage point. This photo spans from the entry at the train station (on the far left), to Space Mountain on the right.

Wand Test

As part of my endless quest to get my Hogwarts Castle paper model kit recognized by publishers and licensees, I plan to make another time lapse making-of video, similar to my "Old House on the Hill" video (see it HERE ).  This time it will be the construction of Hogwarts.  Unlike in my previous video, this time I will have the help of a magic wand!  This is a very short wand experiment, using Adobe After Effects to supply the magic.

Happy New Year!

As I begin the 10th year of Haunted Dimensions, I want to thank all
Haunted-dimensioneers for your continued interest and support of my ghostly endeavors!
May 2014 bring health, happiness and prosperity to us all!
Ray

Christmas Dimensions

The Hitchhiking Ghosts have prepared for a swinging Christmas season!  Feel free to use it as your Facebook cover image for the holidays. Also, check out the front page of Haunted Dimensions.

Psycho Sweets!

This made my day! Haunted-Dimensioneer, Brad, enlarged my "Bates House" paper model kit by 180% and used it as a template to create a gingerbread version! (Click photo to enlarge) Fantastic! (Thanks for the donation to Paper Model Purgatory too, Brad!)  All of my free paper models can be found at  www.haunteddimensions.raykeim.com/index301.html

Bleachy Demon

Today I experimented with a bleach stencil of the demon wallpaper design on a cheap T-shirt. I cut the template out of heavy weight paper and attached it to the shirt with spray mount. I cover exposed areas of the shirt with paper then sprayed bleach over the stencil with a spray bottle in a WELL VENTILATED area. The paper stencil was a one time use, so I ripped it off and hit the shirt with a few more random sprays and spatters, then rinsed and washed.
I used my demon wallpaper template which can be found at http://www.haunteddimensions.raykeim.com/index250.html
You may want to add connecting strips to some of the areas of the stencil so it doesn't fall into too many pieces.  

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, Dimensioneers! I hope your night is full of crunchy leaves, the smell of roasting Jack-o-lantern lids, sincere yard haunts, and the screams and laughter that go along with this ancient celebration.