Steady as She Goes

The roots on the main project Reaper have stiffened to the point I was able to remove the ties.  Kind of wish we had been able to get more roots over the back of the skull for aesthetic reasons, but it looks like we'll have enough for practical anchoring purposes.  I have read about some techniques to get lignified roots to put out new growth in specific places, so I'll probably try those out later once everything else is done.  Not worth the risk of messing with things that aren't technically broken at this point.

We've also got a lot of big roots across the face that look like they may all stick around.  Have to see how it goes, but we may end up pruning some of them to give better visibility to the skull.

The Cumari is doing well after it's pulldown.  Just like with the Peter, you can see where key roots are fattening up while lesser roots are drying up.  The grip isn't as skin tight as I had hoped (really wanted roots snaking around the little surface details), but that might be something we can improve upon later.

The Halloween mini skull is coming back better than I expected.  It's been struggling a bit but seems to be doing better now.  Not 100% sure the small roots going around the back of the skull will make it, but we'll just have to wait and see.  They're not all going to be winners, it's always a bit of a numbers game.  Make lots, and then only show off the best ones.  Outsiders don't always get to see the failures like you are. ;)

Speaking of it being a numbers game, just the other day I took the strongest of the spare Halloween peppers and started it out over the rock wall Buddha decoration that I think I showed you a while back.  Again, doing this on the phone makes it hard to go back and check, sorry about that.  But like the others, I've spread the roots out over the front and a good chunk over the back to give it some grip.

This one didn't really have much if any in the way of dominant roots, so it's just kind of splayed out there at the moment.  Should prove interesting to follow along with, because I have no clue exactly what direction this one is going to go in!