Masks and other Art

[Unorthodox]

I'm recalling an evil Christmas cat suddenly...

[Unorthodox]

[Buster's Uncle]

?

[Unorthodox]

Yeah, that's the thing.  It's among my potential Christmas builds.  It follows with Gryla and the yule lads. 

[Buster's Uncle]

This one fought me even harder than the last...

[Spacy]

But, you did get the eyes right, which from the masks I have seen is usually the part that seem to be wrong. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Another one's drying right now; let's see if I can keep up the good work...

[Rusty Edge]

Kat Frend Project dividends.

[Buster's Uncle]

[Buster's Uncle]

So here's what I've been working on today:


The nose part of the nose/brow/cheek assemblies are 19 years old; I made them for masks for a play Mylochka wrote/produced/directed.  Sculpey is great to work with, but turns out to be mighty brittle for hard use like prying out of a paper mache mask (made of glue, after all) formed over something made of it.

The reason both those appliances are multi-colored is because they went though a lot of repairs and evolution in the ensuing decades.  I've repeatedly added more while I was replacing thin edges that broke off.

-Now, I hit on something I find promising while I was making the shell base for the wrestling mask.  I'm going to encase these in paper mache and coat that in latex.  Not least of the benefits should be that a flexible shell base will be a lot easier to pry back out of a dried mask.  Another is that the plastic store-bought halfmask that's the rest of the base won't be trying to slide around underneath while I'm laying paper.  -Which relates to those two cones, which are horns for oni masks.  Those, added to the facial appliances and the halfmask base, have made for some super, super-cute masks that Mylochka loves, but it's a -girldog- to keep them still and in place before a couple of layers of paper are on.  I'm going to mount them on a strip.

The latex casting of the upper part of my face isn't integral to all this; just a convenient surface to place the rest on while I work.



The first thin paper base to set a nose/brow/cheek assembly on, dried.



A second, for the other, drying.



The first set, glued together.



Another cat mask, drying.  I hope I've finally worked out a good way to make them that isn't such a struggle to get off the base, and so traumatic to it. 



A paper shell to mount the appliance for a skull mask on.  If you look closely, you can see the diagonal crack running across the left side of the appliance.  It's the second skull mask appliance, far sturdier than the original, and has already broken once...


As soon as the second halfmask shell base is dried enough to retrieve the plastic halfmask, I begin covering the outside of the first nose/brow/cheek appliance...

For weeks now, it feels like I spend all my time waiting for prep-work to dry, instead of making many masks...

[Buster's Uncle]

Set in front of the dehumidifier to dry:


-Now to glue the other set together, pry the kitten mask off the base -it'll need more macheing work tomorrow before trimming, because of the way I made it- pry the shell off the Mylochka base and glue the skull appliance to it --- if all goes well.  And then, to bed.

[Buster's Uncle]

Here's where I am now:


These are dry and ready to start coating with latex.


I don't remember what the deal is with the nose - I'm going to fill in some gaps around the bottom and build up the brow and make some cheeks for it.  The skull shell is dry and ready for coating...

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh - and my part of this is finished.

[Buster's Uncle]

This is gonna be fun to finish up encasing tomorrow...

[Unorthodox]

Oh - and my part of this is finished.

After watching some of the TV series recently...
Drop the ears and slight modification, you'd have some of the lesser quality planet of the apes masks.  (not meaning your quality is lesser, but some of those ape masks were completely stiff and non-articulating)