Gone Feral In Idaho

Ah, the LED.  What a money saver, that is, if you have the cash up front.  I do not.  I currently use two strings of 3 par 38 cans because I started all this in 2009 with zero electrical know how.  For 2010, I attempted to make three flickering flame LED lanterns that turned out O.K.  Each run on a 9V battery that lasted through the several evenings that I had them lit.  You can see the 2010 lighting in my You Tube video here .  As you can see, I had a lot of colorful light that doesn't necessarily do justice to the level of detail I put into my props.  I'm sure most of the haunters out there are familiar with Skull and Bone  who has a great tutorial on the dynamics of lighting.  If you haven't seen Pumpkinrot's  masterpieces do yourself the favor.   The Davis Graveyard  is a great example of using very natural looking lighting.   My goal for 2011, in addition to adding at least 12 more props (ooh, that's one a...

The first witch has made an appearance.  I have three tombstones to finish and then the little graveyard will get set up.  Later she'll move to the yard where we'll set up the cauldron.  Her hair is drying as I write this.  

My three Macbeth witches are coming along nicely.  I've mached them, spar urethaned them three times and now am putting the final paint job on their skeletons.  I also matted their skin and added more gloss to their mouths including drooling and shining up their eyes. The sealant will dry clear.

Here I've pinched the parchment over the LED's to create a full diffuser. I am really happy with this one for this year.  Yup, that is the sound of a washer and dryer going at 3 AM.  That's what happens when you work the swing shift.  

I wrapped the 10 LED's in electrical tape to hold them in a bundle and then wrapped the exposed LED's in parchment as a diffuser.  I like the look of the originating "flame" at the bottom of the glass.  I am going to tinker with more parchment to diffuse more, but I think I will hot glue a flame shape over the exposed bulbs to make a sturdier, more weather resistant diffuser. Oh and DANG! the HD setting made a huge difference in the video.  Still not the best, but compare this to the last clip.  

This is my prototype LED flicker lantern.  I still have a lot to do, but I think I found a cheap and simple circuit that just about anyone could make, trust me, I am no electrician.  Sorry for the poor quality, but I am simply trying to get the atmosphere across.  I blocked out the base of the lantern because it is sitting on the wiring and a ton of light leaks through the bottom until I get everything the way I like it.  Please, give me some feedback.  I plan to have three lanterns, one for each witch in the yard haunt this year.  The base plan is Spooky Blue's   "Spookyfire" LED blob , but with resistors and slave non-blinking ultrabright LED's that blink in a circuit with a cheaper blinking LED after referring to an LED   circuit wizard .  

I'm sure most folks have seen the old kerosene lanterns often used in haunts.  There are some great simple hacks to make them a bit more haunt reliable and safe such as this  and this .  There are now LED flickering candles you can buy at most craft and dollar stores, but they are pretty weak.  There is infuriating little information on the internet about how to go about building a simple flicker circuit that makes much sense.  Either the circuits are too complicated for the novice electrician, or poorly developed by folks that don't know what they are doing.  I've spent months trying to figure out a simple and effective circuit to fit in the three lanterns I picked up for $5 a piece at the local discount store.   First, I would not have gotten this far without a nod to these "pioneers" of yard haunt LED ingenuity.  Spooky Blue has the " Spooky Blob ", but I wasn't comfortable with the circuitry that seemed possible to burn ou...