Singing face on real tree?

[rhino]

I've seen the singing faces on coro.  Awesome!  But, I would like to put my singing faces on a real tree.  Non-RGB.

 

Has anyone done this?  Any tips & tricks?  Is there a design out there someplace?  How many channels should be allocated for this?

 

Tree is about 52" in circumference.  I'm estimating about 12" across the tree can be used as the width of the face.  With that, what should be the length of the face?

 

These are pine and fir trees; thus, thick bark.  Staples really don't hold well, and not interested in putting a lot of nails / screws in the tree.  Am I being impossible?

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited July 4, 2016 by rhino

[ShayneT]

I went old school and attached orange rope light to black landscape fence with zip ties.  It then hung between two fence poles in front of the hedge.  It uses the same number and configuration of channels as the singing faces.  Here is a link to a video:  Thriller Singing Hedge

[Brian Mitchell]

12 inches?  
That is not very big.

You will need a lot of 20 or 35ct strings.

 

[rhino]

7 hours ago, ShayneT said:

I went old school and attached orange rope light to black landscape fence with zip ties.  It then hung between two fence poles in front of the hedge.  It uses the same number and configuration of channels as the singing faces.  Here is a link to a video:  Thriller Singing Hedge

I like this idea!  Don't know exactly what "black landscape fence" is, but I can find out.   This is good!  Thanks for the tip.

[rhino]

7 hours ago, Brian Mitchell said:

12 inches?  
That is not very big.

You will need a lot of 20 or 35ct strings.

 

Yeah, the tree is the tree;  I need to do something with it, and the "singing face" is the best idea I have gotten thus far.  There are a couple large trees like this in the very front of the "yard" / display area.

 

Thanks for the tip on the 20 / 35 ct strings.  I'll have to stock up on those.

 

Now, does anyone have designs for the singing face?  How many channels should be used?  Moving eyeballs?  Open and shut eyelids?  Different mouth configurations?  Other?

[Brian Mitchell]

If you want to keep it simple.  Mine would be just 6 channels.   Eyes open, shut, left, right.  Mouth open , shut. 

Edited July 5, 2016 by Brian Mitchell

[mpageler]

I would make a framework to hold the lights and then attach it to the front of the tree. You could then pull some of the branches throw it as long as it doesn't cover any of the lights.

 

In building a 48" pixel wreath this year with c9 bulbs, I went this route. To keep the bulbs spacing uniformed, mounted them to a bare wreath ring frame and then mounted this ring to the wreath. Once I pull out some branch, can't even see what I did to attach the lights. A little more cost but worked out really well.

[Parkie]

We're making some singing faces this year also. Saw the faces on Christmas Utah and thought it was awesome. I'm trying to do three trees like he did. They are going to be made out of rebar and C7 lights. 5 channels per face, except for the guy with glasses. The nose and cheeks/lower eye lid (glasses) will be one channel, eye balls with or without upper eyelid 2nd channel, upper lip 3rd channel, lower lip 4th channel and then an "O" for the mouth for the 5th channel. They will be about 12' by 12', and we'll wire tie them to the tree. It's nice to be able to use an 80' lift. With this set up I only need 1 LOR160xW and have 2 channels left over. Looking at videos of other talking faces some actually used another set of lips but I thought this configuration looks good.

[ShayneT]

Here is a link to Lowe's:  Fence

I use seven channels - five for mouth and two for eyes.  I did add some light sets over the mouth so for non singing sequences I can light it up so there is not a black void on the hedge which brings the channel count to eight.

 

Edited July 5, 2016 by ShayneT

[rhino]

13 hours ago, Brian Mitchell said:

If you want to keep it simple.  Mine would be just 6 channels.   Eyes open, shut, left, right.  Mouth open , shut. 

Perfect!  I like it.  Now, if you wouldn't mind, what is the size of your singing face here?  Just the face (eyes, mouth), not including the tree outline.  Thanks again for your help!

 

[rhino]

13 hours ago, mpageler said:

I would make a framework to hold the lights and then attach it to the front of the tree. You could then pull some of the branches throw it as long as it doesn't cover any of the lights.

 

In building a 48" pixel wreath this year with c9 bulbs, I went this route. To keep the bulbs spacing uniformed, mounted them to a bare wreath ring frame and then mounted this ring to the wreath. Once I pull out some branch, can't even see what I did to attach the lights. A little more cost but worked out really well.

mpageler,

 

Thanks for this.  From Shayne's post above, I was leaning this way.  But, instead of the flat frame (I'm guessing) you're using for the wreath, I'm thinking of using a more flexible frame, that can wrap around the tree.  This way, the face appears to be the tree, instead of something hanging from the tree.   That's the dream, anyway.  I appreciate your post, as it confirms some ideas.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[rhino]

8 hours ago, Parkie said:

We're making some singing faces this year also. Saw the faces on Christmas Utah and thought it was awesome. I'm trying to do three trees like he did. They are going to be made out of rebar and C7 lights. 5 channels per face, except for the guy with glasses. The nose and cheeks/lower eye lid (glasses) will be one channel, eye balls with or without upper eyelid 2nd channel, upper lip 3rd channel, lower lip 4th channel and then an "O" for the mouth for the 5th channel. They will be about 12' by 12', and we'll wire tie them to the tree. It's nice to be able to use an 80' lift. With this set up I only need 1 LOR160xW and have 2 channels left over. Looking at videos of other talking faces some actually used another set of lips but I thought this configuration looks good.

Parkie,

 

Awesome!  12' x 12' ?!  80' lift?!  Wow!  What is "Christmas Utah"?  Can I "see" what you're talking about?

 

[rhino]

4 hours ago, ShayneT said:

Here is a link to Lowe's:  Fence

I use seven channels - five for mouth and two for eyes.  I did add some light sets over the mouth so for non singing sequences I can light it up so there is not a black void on the hedge which brings the channel count to eight.

 

Shayne,

 

Ah, this is perfect!  Thank you, thank you!  Your original post got me going in the right direction.  This helps too!  Thank you!

 

All,

 

Thanks everyone for their ideas, help, and direction.  <mcdonald's> I'm Lovin' It! </mcdonald's>

 

[Parkie]

Rhino, here is the link to Christmas Utah  ;http://www.christmasutah.com/ I really appreciate that Marty left the site up with all of the How To Dos, gives us all more ideas to work with. As soon as I opened his main page and saw the faces in the trees I knew I had to try that in our Park. Good Luck and have fun.

[rhino]

18 minutes ago, Parkie said:

Rhino, here is the link to Christmas Utah  ;http://www.christmasutah.com/ I really appreciate that Marty left the site up with all of the How To Dos, gives us all more ideas to work with. As soon as I opened his main page and saw the faces in the trees I knew I had to try that in our Park. Good Luck and have fun.

Whoa!  That IS cool!  Thanks for sharing that!  I'm looking forward to diving into all the different pages on this website.  Thanks again!

[Brian Mitchell]

10 hours ago, rhino said:

Perfect!  I like it.  Now, if you wouldn't mind, what is the size of your singing face here?  Just the face (eyes, mouth), not including the tree outline.  Thanks again for your help!

 

The face is 16" wide and 24" tall.  

I'm a big fan of ChristmasUtah.  Several of my display pieces are modeled after his and his how to's taught me how to do my coro projects.

 

If you PM me your email I have some close ups of the face construction.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Brian Mitchell

[xmasjam]

Here is a step by step video setting up a singing face on a mega tree.

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