DIY Light Up LED Godzilla Lamp

In this Instructable we will be going over the process of creating a light up LED Godzilla Lamp with cotton atomic breath from the new movie Godzilla vs Kong! (Phew! That was a long sentence)

Anyway, I got the pose/ stance from the poster for the movie (as you can see above), the Godzilla itself took about 2 weeks to make (and who knows, maybe I'll make a Kong sculpt if enough people want it :D)

So for the materials I used:

wire for armature

lots of masking tape

pliers for bending wire

foil

glue

scissors

Elmers glue (pva)

old white rags (pillow sheets or old bed covers)

clay or Plasticine for sculpting spines

resin for casting

polymer clay

caulking or silicone for molds

dish soap for catalyzing caulking silicone

rbg or led strip

various sculpting materials (glad wrap for blending, sculpting tools)

clay for scales

Lots of hot glue

Lots of different paints (black, white, red, and yellow for eyes)

various brushes

clear bottles or chicken wire for atomic breath

spray adhesive

and finally cotton for the explosion.

Now that's a lot of stuff, but you should have a lot of it at home and anything you don't have you should be able to source locally.

With that said lets get to Making :)

Step 1: Armature and Basic Shapes

All good sculpts start with a skeleton or armature, so that's where we'll have to start.

To start off I got some wire I found in the backyard and cut it down to size (coat hanger wire or anything that retains it's shape will do). After that I bent and wrapped them around each other until I had a basic Godzilla skeleton, but Godzilla isn't just bones, Hes THICC! so my model had to be chunky as well ;) For muscles I scrunched up some foil and secured it down with masking tape, carefully following my reference photos I built up the arms, thighs, and body of the titan.

after the main shapes I sculpted some feet separately and hot glued them in, finally I fixed up any small mistakes and prepared the build for clothe mache by covering the whole model in masking tape.

Step 2: All About Cloth Mache

Cloth mache is a technique devised by Dan Reeder where you drape white Clothe into elmers glue, then cover your model to create a paper mache-ish kind of deal that's easier to sculpt onto.

First I cut out some white cloth to shape and dripped it into the glue, wiping off a bit of the pva I covered my sculpt with the cloth, adding layers and making sure there was as little tape showing as possible.

Finally I topped it off with a brush over of pva glue. at this point I didn't have a head (for Godzilla of course:) as I was planning to sculpt it in polymer clay to get a more detailed look.

At the end of this step I had a prehistoric lizard that was ready for some sculpting...

Step 3: Clay Time!

Right now we have a pretty weird looking Godzilla, he has no scales, limbs for hands and a scrawny stick for a head, which as you can probably guess does not look like the real deal.

For the small details I used some water based air drying clay that I picked up from my local crafts shop for around 5 bucks, I mainly used a scalpel I had lying around for sculpting.

For scales I started by rolling and flattening out a piece of clay and attaching it to the model. Next I smoothed it out and put a piece of cling wrap over it (the cling wrap is used to smooth out crevices and wrinkles to create a more natural look). After the cling wrap was laid down I scored the surface of the clay cross-ways to make a scaled look.

I added more clay pieces throughout the sculpt and added details to the chest (kind of making a scaly six pack). A thing to keep in mind is to think about the muscles underneath the scales to make sure the sculpt maintains the texture but doesn't lose the muscle and actual anatomy underneath. For hands I glued some cut down skewers into the arm sockets (you can use wire) and rolled some clay on top of the fingers.

To top it all off I brushed over a layer of glue to seal any cracks and started work on the head of the lizard...

Step 4: Head of the Beast

For the head I started by scrunching two pieces of foil into rectangle jaws (top and bottom). Next I used some Sculpey (polymer clay) and wrapped a "skin" around them. Next I added a square eyebrow and raised cheek to make him look angry (grrrrr). I sculpted in around the eye socket and began work with the Cling wrap.

For the Cling wrap I added a small piece on top of the head and sculpted in some wrinkles/ scales. The Cling wrap really helps in making realistic and natural looking details. After the outside of the head was done I added in a tongue and sculpted inside the jaw before adding in some teeth (the teeth later broke off as they were too small and the clay wasn't strong enough, you may be able to get away using polymer clay for teeth if your teeth aren't too small and you've got some good clay).

After connecting the two jaws together loosely (don't worry if they come apart because we're still gonna have thread an LED strip down his throat later) I put it on a tray to go into a preheated oven at 100 degrees Celsius (212 Fahrenheit) for 15 to 20 mins or until golden brown and smelling tasty.

(joking about that last bit, polymer clay is not food and probably wont taste that great :)

Step 5: RBG Strip Lights and Cleaning Stuff Up

Right now we have two head pieces, an led strip, a Godzilla body with scales and detail, and a lot of hot glue. So to begin I paint the insides of the jaws a red fleshy color and attach the top jaw to a little piece of armature that was sticking out, Next I cut a little hole in the neck a couple centimeters from the head through to the other side (this is where the RGB strip is going to run through). After that I measure out the led strip including where the spines will be, as well as accounting for the atomic breath that will be coming out the front, once I have them measured I cut the strip at the tail end (the connectors and wall plug-ins are at the front, coming out the atomic breath end). Once everything was down to size I hot glued the lights in place and thread the strip through the hole that I cut out.

Back to the head now, I glued the top to the wire armature that was sticking out and squished the strip through the top jaw whilst gluing in the bottom jaw while the lights were in place, leaving the strip to hang out the front. (The RGB lights were going to hang like this for a while but that didn't matter)

Finally I thought the neck needed a bit of tlc, and I also wanted it to have a transparent quality to it, which is why I wrapped a bit of see through cling wrap to beef up the neck. I then Cloth Mache'd over it whilst making sure to leave some slits for gills (Yes Godzilla does have gills) and gave the top a small layer of clay to smooth it out and blend it in.

Now we where starting to get somewhere, but there's one crucial thing that the movies' Godzilla has and ours doesn't...

Step 6: Spines!

Spines are a big part of Godzilla, and I really wanted to get them right. To do that I used some clear casting resin that I picked up for around $20 and some caulking silicone for making molds.

There were two ways I made my translucent spine molds, the first way was getting a piece of foil and scrunching it into a spiky spine shape. This worked okay, but the texture I ended up with was not like the actual spines I wanted. The other way was just sculpting some spines out of some Monster Clay I had leftover (Monster Clay is an oil based Clay that can be reused over and over again for sculpting and modelling, although Plasticine could be used instead). In the end I had around 20 spines with special textures and sizes (I had just scored in some textures with a scalpel).

The next step was making the molds themselves, to do that I used a technique I saw a while back from Audreyobscura where you use liquid detergent as a catalyst along with some caulking silicone to make a mold. First I got some 100% silicone (you can tell it's 100% if it releases an acidic vinegar smell) and then I got a container filled with warmish water and some dish washing detergent (This would be the Catalyzing bath for the silicone), Next I poured some caulking silicone into the bath (enough for a couple molds) and stirred it round to incorporate all the catalyst (make sure not to keep it in too long, otherwise it will become too cured to work with).

After it was ready to turn into a mold I took a piece off and covered a spine with the silicone (forming a 1-2 cm skin around the clay spike). I repeated the process over all the spines and let them to dry for about an hour or two.

The next step was to cast the spikes in resin.

This step is definitely to be done outside or in a well vented area with gloves on because resin is definitely not to be taken lightly. To get the molds ready I first cut them in half and pulled out all the clay and foil on the inside, I then laid all of them on a flat surface and got my resin ready.

To get my resin ready for pouring I dropped some catalyst into a cup and mixed it in with the clear resin, making sure to put my molds on a flat surface I poured the resin onto both halves and left them until they were in between wet and tacky, before joining the two pieces together to let them dry.

After they were dry I pulled apart the two molds and was left with a clear spine piece that had a bit of leftover resin hanging around the outside that could be tidied up with a quick snip of some cutters.

I repeated the resin process a couple times until I had around 25 spines, reusing the molds as I went along.

Now we're getting somewhere, we've got the spines done and the godzilla body pretty much complete, so lets start painting this thing!

Step 7: Little Details and Painting!

Now that we have our spikes done and dusted we can attach them to the back of Godzilla, to do that I just hot glued them on to the strip of Led's in order ranging from smallest at the front to biggest in the middle and small down the tail end. Once the glue had dried I painted on some glue to seal it and let it dry, but Godzilla doesn't just have one line of spikes, he has three, and luckily I had made a few two many spines. So I just hot glued them on and any spines that I didn't have I just sculpted out of polymer clay and glued on (I used polymer clay spines for about half of the outer spines).

Once everything was glued in I started on the little details (eyes, claws, and little fixes) to make the claws I again relied on some trusty Sculpey clay along with a scalpel to scribe in the little details, once the claws were all through the oven process I simply glued them into the clawless hands and toes.

The next detail was to add in Godzillas' eyes, to do this I planned to paint a pair of really small eyes and coat them in a bit of resin to make them stand out. So I started by painting a small area yellow on a white sheet, then with a Q-tip that I had dipped In red paint I made a couple eye balls in varying sizes (I changed the size by pressing down light and hard). After that I painted a really small pupil with a skewer and an even smaller reflective white dot. In the end I had to pick the best looking eyes and cut it out (I made around 5 sets) once they were cut out I put a bit of resin Into Godzillas' eye sockets and place them both in carefully, giving a gloss over with a drop of more resin.

Now Godzilla was looking good and ready to get a paint job. To start the painting process I put some good quality matte black on a sheet of newspaper along with some white and blue. The first "base" color was going to be a black-ish grey (it looks more like straight black in the photos though) I just painted one or two coats of the black/grey onto the titan making sure to fill in any cracks in the clay scales or head, I didn't paint underneath the tail because I wanted a sort of lighter underbelly that I could paint later. After the first layer had dried I went over it again with the same color (I didn't paint or paint around the spines yet because I wasn't sure exactly what color I was going to paint them) after the main body was covered and no white cracks were left I went onto dry brushing.

Dry brushing is a painting technique where you wipe almost all the paint off your brush and when the paint touches the model it only sticks to the highlights, I used a light grey to dry brush all the details in my sculpt. This part was really satisfying to see all the little scales and spikes pop out with such a simple technique, I dry brushed over basically the entire sculpt.

The last painting step was to finish any areas I had missed and fix up any errors, so I painted underneath the tail, painted around the spikes (the same process of a dark base and some dry brushing), I painted the claws a light grey color adding in some flair here and there, and painted the polymer clay spikes a dark grey (again with highlights) and gave the resin spikes a light brush over with a dark grey, sort of tinting them.

And with that I let my model Godzilla dry and went on to making his signature atomic breath!

Step 8: Atomic Breath!

Godzilla has a signature attack where he sort of charges up his spines and unleashes an "atomic breath", that melts buildings and enemies with extreme heat. To get that effect I wanted to use an "led cotton cloud" ( I got the ideas from an instructable I found and a youtube video).

To start off I grabbed two clear plastic bottles and cut out chunks of them until they were a little thinner, once they were thinned out I hot glued the cuts and joined the two together, creating a long clear cylinder thingy. This was going to be the base that I would glue the cotton onto.

The next step was to glue some cotton onto the outside of the bottles, this was pretty easy, all I had to do was use some pva and hot glue to stick them on (I made sure not to make the cloud too thick as it would make a pretty weird looking explosion). After the glue had dried I sprayed it over with some spray adhesive to seal it and added a bit more fluff around the bottom (to make it look like the breath had exploded into some land).

Once I had finished the breath itself I threaded the LED strip through the bottle and glued the cloud to the mouth (I also added a bit of cotton around the mouth to blend it in and make it look like it was smoking in there). after everything was secured down I gave it a spray over with some more spray adhesive to seal it all up.

Finally with it all done I connected the strip to the power plug and flipped the switch...

Step 9: The End :)

So that's how I made (and how you can make) a light up Godzilla lamp (that can change its atomic breath and spines to what ever color you want through the power of RGB!).

The whole build took 1 to 2 weeks of making and trial and error to get to where it is but it was definitely worth it! There are definitely a lot of things that can be done better like a more accurate head sculpt and more resin spines, but I wanted to make It in time for the new Godzilla vs Kong movie (so hopefully if you decide to make this you can learn from my mistakes). The titan is the biggest model I've made (bigger than the leonopteryx) and is great at being a night light :)

Thanks for tuning in and i'll see you next time!