Godzilla Kaiju Monster Neopixel Lamp

Make a lamp of any fire breathing creature like a fllying dragon or Godzilla. Simulate flames and fire with a microcontroller board and neopixels or addressable LEDs.

There's CLASSIC, ATOMIC BLAST GODZILLA, and calming nightlight lights.

The coolest thing about Instructables is to see how others may have approached the same idea. I found this https://www.instructables.com/DIY-Light-Up-LED-Godzilla-Lamp/

And some of my previous Godzilla themed stuff https://www.instructables.com/Godzilla-Monster-Light-Up-Hand-Washing-Sign/

Empty clean plastic container

Scrap paper and cardboard

Glue

Tape

Paint

Fiberfill batting

Electronics:

Strand of addressable LEDs or neopixels, you could make do with fairy light strings too!

microcontroller board to do light animations for glow and fire effect, programmed with any flavor of code, Arduino, CircuitPython, MicroBit, etc...

I had this large empty plastic container that I was tossing into the recycle bin.

So I says to myself ,"Self, this has an organic hourglass shape, I could probably make something out of it. Woohoo, there's an Instructables lamp contest going on. Let's make a lamp!"

It resembles the core or body shape of some creature. Cut out some pieces of cardboard to attach to the container to form the rough shape or outline of your creature. You can then start cutting in places where you need to bend the cardboard to a final shape. Scrunch up paper to fill in the voids to form a 3 dimensional creature. Recycle some of that junk mail and weekly flyers from the paper recycling bin. Use packing tape to hold things together or use a stapler to tack things in place. Don't worry about exactness where you fasten or neatness since it will be covered up.

You are essentially sculpting a rough shape with paper.

The next stop is to paper mache the whole thing.

I usually use my glue full strength and apply to pieces of torn paper to cover the object. I do buy glue by the gallon and decant that into smaller squeeze bottles. It is a bit slower to do than the traditional dip in the glue solution but the paper mache dries out faster and makes a tougher/stiffer skin. You gotta have a thick skin in this business. Two or three layers of newspaper makes a shell that you can handle without leaving a dent.

I like to give my paper mache a final layer of torn paper towels instead of sheet paper/newspaper. It gives s slight texture to the final product and I wanted that rough surface to be more like the Godzilla monster aesthetic. As wsith using newspaper, tear off all the factory straight edges and machined perforation lines so that the paper fibers blend into the next piece to form one continuous smooth layer. Overlap the edges of each piece.

When dried, paint with acrylic paint. I used black paint with a streak of white paint to get my creature color. The colors get mixed when brushed on and will give some realistic tonal coloration to the creature,

I had a microcontroller board already wired up to a few strands of neopixels from a previous project. There are so many boards out there now to control neopixel leds.

One strip of neopixels is taped to the ridge of the back. I put a bit of fiberfill along the strip and encased it with packing tape to form the line of dorsal plates that will light up.

I had a pair of neopixel strands (30 neopixels, 60 pixels/meter density) strips that I taped back to back, light emitting out, with a dowel to keep it rigid and straight when it sticks out of the mouth for the fire breathing flame.

In the video, the neopixels are only at .2 or 20% of eye-searing full brightness

It is coded with CircuitPython which allows you to make quick iterative changes to adjust the neopixel animations.

The best fire animation out there still goes to the FASTLED FIRE animation in Arduino that I used here

https://www.instructables.com/Hunger-Games-Global-Warming-Neopixel-Fire-Thermome/

I'm still learning "Python" but a shout out to @todbot Tod Kurt for some CircuitPython fire animations which I have modified. The trick was seeing him use list handling operations which optimizes the execution of code which by nature does not run fast enough to get the same visual effect as does in Arduino.

There's CLASSIC red flame, ATOMIC BLAST GODZILLA blue flame , and calming nightlight fade in and out white lights.

Of course this opens up a lot of options to modify this lamp. Add IoT or sensors to use it as some kind of indicator light. Add sensors to light up when you approach or leave the room. Add sound for the RAWR.

Enjoy!