Uncle Fester Lamp

I was always a fan of the Addams Family, as a little girl I remember watching the TV series and movies with my family. And so recently as I was thinking about getting rid of an old lamp I no longer needed & then I thought why not make it into something cool and so here is how I made the Uncle Fester Lamp.

Materials And Tools

Lamp
Halloween skull
double sided foam tape
2 x 3Mx20mm bolts + nuts
hot glue
clay
sponge
acrylic paint
black eye shadow
hobby and craft sealer

wire cutters
screwdriver
soldering iron
heat shrink sleeve
drill
sculpting tools

Step 1: Lamp Disassembly

First of all I needed to remove the lamp shade, so I started by disassembling the switch and cutting the neutral wire. After that I took apart the base so that I could unscrew the lamp shade and pull out the wire attached to the socket.

Step 2: Preparing the Skull

The skull I bought had a stake attached which needed to be removed. Following the removal I needed means in which to mount the skull onto the lamp arm, so I aligned the lamp arm with the skull and drilled a couple of holes.

Step 3: Attaching the Skull

I didn’t want the wire to be pinched in between the skull and the arm, so I attached some double sided foam tape onto the holes and gently bend the side of the arm top. Following that I was able to thread the wire through the arm and screw the arm onto the skull using two 20mm M3 bolts and nuts and join the base back together.

Step 4: Switch Assemble

In order to assemble the switch I slid a heat shrink sleeve over the neutral wire, soldered the wires together, heated the heat shrink sleeve with a lighter and then joined the switch pieces together. Next I placed the bulb socket in between the teeth and fixed in place with hot glue.

Step 5: Sculpting

The skull was a little slippery so I started by covering it with the clay and allowed it time to dry completely. This way it was easier to add more clay later. I carried on adding more and more clay wherever it seemed necessary until I was happy with the shape of my Fester.

Step 6: Smoothing

For smoothing I used a cut up dish washing sponge. With the rough side I was able to get an even surface and the smooth side was very useful for polishing. At first I planned to keep the original teeth, but I didn’t really like the look of them after adding clay so I sculpted the teeth as well.

Step 7: Painting

For Festers face I mixed a spot of red, yellow and black with white acrylic paint. It took about 4 or 5 layers to get an even coverage. Once dried I painted the eyes white and inside of the mouth black.

Step 8: Eyes

For the iris I cut out a paper circle and traced it onto the eyes. Then I painted the iris brown and black for the pupil. Following that I added dark brown, white and yellow lines into the iris not forgetting about the white reflection spots. Next I outlined the inside of the eyelids and the tear ducts. Fester wouldn’t be Fester without black eyes so I diluted black paint with water and painted large circles around his eyes.

Step 9: Mouth

Fester means to rot so it didn’t feel right to leave his teeth bright white. A spot of yellow and black paint solved that problem.

Step 10: Smudging

Because I slightly overdid it with the black paint around his eyes I decided to tone it down a little. For this I used a cotton wool pad dunked in water. To add more definition to his face I used black eye shadow for wrinkle lines and smudged them with my finger. To finish off I used a tissue to wipe away any leftover eye shadow.

Step 11: Finishing

Lastly I used a hobby and craft sealer to add a shine to his bald head.

Final Thoughts

The whole project took about 20 hours to finish plus some drying time and I’m very happy with the result. If I was to make him again the only thing I would do differently are his eyes. I would probably use the eye shadow instead of the black paint around his eyes.

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