Skull Lanterns

Atelier Effrayant Project, 2026 – Since learning how to use EVA Foam in 2025, when I made the dragon’s head, I’ve been experimenting with a few other projects for our Halloween haunting. Creating Skull Lanterns, in homage to this illustration of Vasilisa the Beautiful from the Time-Life books I read obsessively as a kid, is a project I took on this year.

Ideally, what I’d like is to have about 8 Skull Lanterns along the fence for Halloween; I’d contemplated buying styrofoam skulls and just hollowing them out to fit a light, but I decided that I’d spend as much time on that, and possibly be less satisfied with the result, as I would with building them myself from EVA Foam.

The thing that really held me up over the Winter was trying to find a pattern I liked. There aren’t a lot of patterns for full skulls out there, as most people working in this medium are making cosplay elements, so you’re more likely to find a mask with a skull face than a full skull. The one pattern that I kept finding images of, which I really liked, seems to have been taken down.

So in the end, with time ticking away, I went with Kamui Cosplay’s Human Skull Pattern, which wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but looked like it was a great base that I could alter and build on. As I’m writing this, I see that they’ve added a Human Skull Mask, which might be closer to my ideal, so I’ll probably buy that pattern as well. They make excellent patterns, and have great tutorials top help you learn both how to use EVA Foam and how to make their patterns, so it’s a great place to start if that’s something you’re interested in.

Because I delayed so long on getting a pattern, it definitely threw off my schedule – I’d hoped to get the prototype made over the Winter, and make all of the decisions about the internal structure for the stick and the light, as well as the exterior design additions, at that time, and then churn out a bunch over the Summer. But I didn’t get the pattern until July.

I know myself well enough to know that, especially when it’s a personal project, and I’m learning, my process can be slow. It takes time for my brain to mull a problem or a decision if there’s no pressure to get on with it. And if I’m not happy with something, that makes it even longer; part of me will always say ‘scrap it, start again from scratch.’

The one usable skull I had ready for Halloween this year isn’t a final product; this guy is definitely still in process. I’m not disappointed, because it did totally work, but I’m not happy with it, y’know?

Anyway, some artistic points:

• I want each of the skulls to have their own personality, so some will have teeth, maybe even fangs, and some will have friendlier or more mischievous / evil expressions
• I also want to have each skull sitting at its own angle on the pole, to give it personality but also to make sure that, as a group, they’re giving more of a ramshackle/magic/disorganized look
• I’m still contemplating whether the interior light is too bright – I wanted the light to create ‘eyebeams’ in the mist (I use a smoke machine at Halloween), but I’m not sure that really worked, and they may be too dazzling
• Given that I’m primarily using these in the dark, I chose to paint the exterior flat white and not spend much time with details, but I may fuss around with that in the future, particularly if I use them in another setting

Technical points:

• The light inside is a rechargeable led under-counter light that can be set to a bunch of different colours, and can also be motion-activated, though I haven’t played around with that setting much, and during Halloween night there are so many people walking by that it doesn’t seem worthwhile to use that setting
• I created a mount out of EVA Foam inside the skull for the light, but then used those 3M Velcro strips to secure it – I may change this in the future
• I used bamboo garden poles for the stick – I grow tomatoes, so usually by Halloween I’ve got lots of those stakes that I don’t necessarily need for the garden, and can be re-purposed for the Skulls. And the mount for the poles was made out of some thicker EVA Foam.
• I lined the interior of the skull with tinfoil, because I want the eyes to glow, rather than the whole skull. There wasn’t a lot of light getting through the foam + acrylic paint, but I thought it would look better overall if the eyes were the only place light was escaping.
• To that same end, I’d meant to close off the nose and the bottom of the skull with a removable foam panel, but didn’t have time
• I also considered lining the eyes with waxed paper to disguise the interior – though this would reduce the intensity of the light, I think it diminishes the magic if you can see inside – but oddly enough I was out of waxed paper, and so was my local grocery store. I’m going to experiment with it, or maybe another material if that doesn’t do the trick – this would probably mean the motion-activated lights weren’t an option, but for this purpose, I think that’s fine.

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