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The
Bold,
Heroic,
Origin
Of The
Captain!
-In
the
workshop
You’ll need a
foundation/form/base to
build a paper mache mask on – it can be as simple as a plain
store-bought mask
resting on wadded foil or newspaper, the art
being in what you add on top of that and how you paint it. Some online tutorials
suggest half a milk
jug for beginners, but there are more advanced approaches worth
pursuing. You can
craft an entire face from scratch, of
sculptamold/cellulose, plaster, or polymer baking clay (over a
pre-existing
face to save space and material or not, leaving the base mask/form
embedded in
the new or not, depending). I’ve
done
all of those. I’ve
done several this
year with a paper mache shell over a whole base, added features or a
pre-existing facial appliance made of Sculpey, and enclosed the whole
in more
paper mache to hold it together and then coated it all in latex for
water and
glue-resistance, which seems to yield a pretty durable base, removable
face parts
(noses and snouts,
mostly) otherwise tending to be
fragile under the stress of mask removal – and with a little
plaster gauze and someone who will lay still for you, a cast of a real
face is
not that hard to make, and endlessly useful – and you
can modify a
cast of a real face to exaggerate
features and fit your
artistic vision, which is what this page is about.
When I saw that
masculine chin, strong facial lines and broad boxer's nose, I
immediately thought of
making a copy to modify into The Captain.
The Captain is a commedia dell'arte character -think The Skipper on Gilligan's Island in a smug and bragging mood- and we've been talking for years about doing up a set of the stock characters from that genre.
Since I wanted to
keep the original face –and it was cast in
something concretish/extremely hard/tough-to-carve, besides- I first
made a
mold as if I was just making a paper mache mask of the whole thing, and
lined
it with a water (sweat) resisting layer of latex inside, as always. Difference is, instead of
then cutting out
the various holes, I poured it full of plaster.
You can make a quite decent mold that way.
-Also sandpaper. There was
lots and lots and lots
of sanding.
---
I do believe I've
reached the practical limits of what I can do
with varying densities of plaster, here –you can see bits of newer
fill-in
plaster on the bottom edges in all three shots that resisted
sanding way more than the adjacent parts,
not for lack of trying- time to paper mache over the base, smoothing
over some
roughnesses in the process, and alter the mouth and cheeks with added
sculpey...
---
…Looks more like
Dick Van Dyke than Alan Hale Jr. at this stage…
I’d started with a
face that was thin-lipped and very much not
smiley – but that’s easily enough remedied.
Smiling lifts the cheeks upwards, bunching muscles/tendons
anchored to
the sides of the nose and pulling up the nostrils.
That’s what I’ve altered with added Sculpey –less
of it than it looks like here- also smoothing over some unevenness left
from the
plaster of the jaw line and improving the symmetry, to boot.
So without even
altering the mouth yet, I’ve got the face looking pretty pleased
with himself. However,
I see The Captain
as having a sensual, pleasure-loving, streak, too, so I want to make
the lower
lip fuller – and I’ll introduce a faint
upward curve while I’m at it; it’s to be a smirk, not a grin.
---
Later,
having done that and added a smidge over one brow to cock it a little
-and cut the plywood backing down to fit the bottom edge-
then covered the lot with a couple layers of paper mache to hold it all
together, my boy The Captain was lookin’ smug.
(I also finished up the mold into a mask - and managed to make him smile, too.
(-Wasn’t that
tough to do with clever trimming – turned the slit cut between
the
lips up at the corners of the mouth just a tad, and wide eyeholes with
a distinct
arch on the bottom make the cheeks look bunched, and you’ve got a
smile/pleased/pleasant/friendly expression – it’s basic cartooning in
3D.
(I did a later
second trimming pass on the outer edge, too; you
don’t want the entire forehead included in a mask –unless it’s supposed
to be
bald or you need the space to attach a wig- and much left under the
chin, even on a huge face like this that would be
big even if he was skinny, makes
for a
very uncomfortable mask to wear. You
need to move your own chin to talk, and that needs a little room.
(-The original
owner of the face –a [gifted] artist himself -
points out [correctly] that this one would really
lend itself to being
painted as a
sinister clown…)
---
Here it is several
days and latex layers later, freshly coated and
set in front of the dehumidifier to speed drying.
Concurrent projects drying with him: upside
down, the half-mask is drying on a base cast of the upper part of my
own face, and the upright
ape face is a shell base with a separate/optional ape nose drying, with
the shell an
apelike nose-less alien face – that one had an interesting creative
evolution,
and I think enough pictures taken at different stages to write up well
for
another tutorial/creative/crafting process page.
Stay tuned.
(Latex mixes with
a little acrylic/latex paint well enough, and I often
bother to color my bases as I coat them –sometimes even going for
details and
realism- here you can see purple on the forehead in the dry coat
underneath –
it’s possible to imitate translucent Caucasian skin tones with
semi-colored translucent
latex pretty well, if you’re careful and have a good eye for color, not
that
this one ended a resounding success in that, as you’ll soon see.)
---
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