Nightmare Before Christmas Fanart from High School

I was and still am obsessed with Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, and while I was terrified of it as a child when it came out in 1994 (I was in kindergarten), I rediscovered it in high school. I watched it over and over; when I had the whole film memorized, I watched it and memorized it in French. I bought books about it and studied the history of stop-motion animation. I made a few figurines out of clay and fabric scraps and brought them to school and everyone was fascinated by them.

First I made a vampire duck out of Sculpey.

Then I made another vampire duck, this time with rotating wheels on axles:

Then I made a Pumpkin King scarecrow from the opening credits.

Then, with my improved  mastery of the materials, I made Jack and Sally dolls.

I made a clay swirl lollipop for a figurine of Barrel, and a teeny tiny Oogie Boogie with a pair of little snake eyes dice.

To take the craziness even further, I dressed up as Sally that year in my personally sewn together costume, complete with white-out contacts. People really liked it and a few told me it was the best costume they'd ever seen. I submitted it to the official Daniel Radcliffe website and got a swag bag of Harry Potter stuff for coming in 2nd in their online costume contest.

I made a diorama of Vincent, which is an early short film of Burton's on the extras of the Nightmare Before Christmas DVD. 

This particular piece caught the eye of my music teacher, Greg Schweitzer, and since he knew Ken Page (the voice actor who played Oogie Boogie in The Nightmare Before Christmas) from working summer stock at the Muny in Forest Park, he surprised me with Ken Page's autograph. It said, "To Cecily - Keep Smilin! Best Wishes and BOO! Ken Page Oogie Boogie 2004."