The 49-year-old handcrafts very detailed horror creature props out of his Gurnee home. In early October, he started his own business, called Tom’s Night Terrors, selling the creatures through his Web site, www.tomsnightterrors.com.

He has sold his creepy figures a wide range of buyers: Halloween enthusiasts who want original decorations for their yards or stores; and Six Flags Great America, which recently bought two of his props to decorate the theme park for Fright Fest.

Peltier remembers having a fascination with the weekly TV horror movie show, “Creature Features,” and all things macabre as a kid. In junior high he made a large paper mache vampire bat and a wolf man costume for Halloween.

“I was really into it. I used our poodle’s hair for the mask and made hands for it,” Peltier remembered.

“I was making props without even realizing it as a kid.”

Peltier, who previously worked in the graphic arts field for a printing business, was laid off last year after working at the same company for 27 years.

Knowing of his love for the horrific — and that he was pretty creative when it came to carving jack o’ lanterns, Peltier’s wife, Judy, was encouraging as he started to look into his passion.

“This was inside of me, I guess, but nobody recognized it. I didn’t recognize it, otherwise I would have started this years ago,” he said.

Peltier got DVDs and did online research about the processes others use to create the scary props, but learning the ropes wasn’t an easy task.

“If you can’t figure it out yourself, you have to call people to tell you how to do it.

“Some people are very open about it; they don’t mind telling you about what they do. But there are other people, they’ll only tell you a little bit.”

Once he developed his own “creature-creating” process, Peltier still found it wasn’t exactly easy.

Some of his pieces are made from generic molds, like his “homegrown craniums”, but most of his props are made from sculptures he creates himself. He then makes casts of the sculptures, which takes almost as long as sculpting the piece itself.

Painting the pieces proves to be a huge endeavor as well. Peltier uses a mixture of paint and latex, a mixture that keeps the paint bonded completely to the piece, but also tends to clog an airbrush.

There’s also cutting, glossing, varnishing — and the smaller details like hand-sculpting teeth or forming giant hands, depending on what he is creating.

Peltier estimates that he spends at least 100 hours from start to finish working on his full-size props, which can be 15 feet tall. And that doesn’t include curing time.

It may be time-consuming, but Peltier loves what he does.

“You have to love what you’re making. I’d be in trouble if I was making bunny rabbits or Santa Clauses,” he joked, while setting up to paint one of his pieces.

So it was a big validation for Peltier when he was notified by Six Flags that they were going to buy two of his props, called Rottgut Pumpkin Scarecrows. Both of his pieces are in Southwest Territory in the amusement park.

The giant Rottgut Pumpkin displayed outside is in a grassy area, and is hard to miss. He is 11 feet tall and has an arm span of 14 or 15 feet, Peltier explained. There’s also another pumpkin scarecrow indoors in a maze.

Although Peltier has ultimate dreams to get his props into Hollywood, he realizes it isn’t probable, due to the competitive nature of the business and the things they can do with digital animation these days.

But Peltier, who attends the College of Lake County for graphic arts, says his professor there, Vance Mellen, is planning to use some of his props in a movie he is making through his company, Mellenhead Productions.

But in general, Peltier just hopes people can appreciate his artwork.

“I just hope my work will go to homes of enthusiasts who are on the same level with their love of horror and Halloween that I am.

“The people who love to scare and be scared, I hope, are the people that will really appreciate my art.”