Its time we finally properly introduced ourselves! After launching Pigeon Creek Studio a few months ago it has been what we can only describe as a whirlwind of horror, gore and Halloween madness. We obviously mean this in the best possible way!
So, who are we? Well my name is Kenny and to be perfectly honest I am only a small part of Pigeon Creek Studio (PCS), the real driving force to be found behind this business is my wife Melissa. However for this blog entry at least I am going to be doing most of the talking mainly because my wife is currently in her studio creating all manner of monsters. Myself and my wife have been married for two years, and have been together for over 6 years. Even before we met we both had an unquenchable love of all things horror/Halloween. Melissa grew up in the United States where Halloween is a huge event compared to how it is celebrated in the UK, from a young age she has worked in American style Haunted houses which are very different from what we expect here. Whilst I grew up on the West coast of Scotland and my introduction to Horror was mainly through my dad and watching all the horror movies I could get my little claws on.
From left to right: Kenny (Bane our dog) Melissa
Melissa started out as an actress in these Haunted Houses and quickly moved on to becoming the lead make up artist at a Haunt in Evansville, Indiana. Whilst working there she very quickly discovered that she had a real talent and what is just as important, an incredible eye for detail when it comes to creating things that you can only picture in your nightmares. I cant over state how important we believe the small details are at bringing the things we make to life and it for sure helps having a perfectionist like Melissa in charge. For Melissa the next step was obvious, she went from transforming people into monsters and zombies to creating them from scratch.
Melissa (pictured left) as an actress in an American Haunt in Indiana.
To do this she was lucky to have the support of the place she worked at and from the people around her at the time, all of whom we are still close friends with (one of them even performed the ceremony at our wedding!). This gave her the freedom to experiment and make mistakes as she learned these new skills. However her skill and talent doesn’t all come from her work in the American Haunt industry. As with everything we set our minds to we want to ensure that we do things properly and Melissa has done that by gaining a degree in Art and Psychology from the University of Southern Indiana. Her professors will have definitely had an interesting time of marking her work with almost everything being influenced by her love of horror!
For myself, my career path has so far taken a different route and only with the creation of Pigeon Creek Studio have I really been able to do anything horror related. As I said I grew up on the west coast of Scotland and stayed there until I was 21, when I joined the Military. 9 years later and I am still a serving soldier and have just completed my fourth operational tour. This has given me a lot of experience to pull from and as a result I am very well suited to helping out with all the things that are required to support a business. With Melissa the creative genius behind our products I am able to take the pressure of all the background stuff such as working on the website, Facebook page and looking for conventions and ways to help us expand and reach our target audience. (Like this blog!) I am also not to bad at foaming or thinking of weird and wonderful ways around some of the road blocks we come up against whilst building monsters. The military definitely makes you able to think on your feet!
In this way we make what we feel is the perfectly balanced team and between us we are able to figure out new and imaginative ways to bring our idea’s to life. Our goal with Pigeon Creek Studio is to deliver high quality products that can be used for a variety of things. In the UK the Halloween Industry is growing fast but there are very few sources of real quality that don’t involve mass production of flimsy plastic items. Together we aim to create your dream Halloween items that will last you for years and that you will be proud to show off in new and exciting ways…and what better test of this than displaying them outside in the most unpredictable of British weather! (Our tombstones have lasted 3 years of Halloween weather outside so far!)
With the introductions now done we are eager to continue this blog into the future and expand it to a variety of Halloween and Horror topics and potentially even some business related stuff that you may find interesting!
- Pigeon Creek Studio