Paper maché interview with yours truly
An art student in Australia emailed me a couple interview questions, and I was happy to reply! I decided to publish my responses here in case they’re interesting to anybody. Just two questions, but I wrote a lot; you know I love hearing myself talk/type! Read more…
“Gras-goyle” gargoyle costume for Mardi Gras 2025
This here “Gras-goyle” costume for Mardi Gras 2025 was one of my most ambitious projects ever! I’ve written up my whole process in seven(!) articles. If you’re having trouble sleeping, these may help! And below are a bunch of pics of me wearing the finished costume on Mardi Gras day with Cryptique. Read more…
“Gras-goyle” gargoyle costume part 7: thoughts on painting and color
You may be surprised to hear this from me, but I’m nervous every time I’m painting a project, and I’m never very confident I can get the paint job to look the way I want. By contrast, when it comes to sculpting/building complex shapes, I can dive in with confidence and usually create something that’s very close to what I’ve envisioned. But for painting, I’m always guessing, always nervous, and usually somewhat surprised with the result — often happily surprised; sometimes not. Read more…
“Gras-goyle” gargoyle costume, WIP part 6: finishing touches!
This is the final part of my gargoyle costume project for Mardi Gras 2025! If you wanna start at the beginning, check out part 1: column, part 2: wings, part 3: starting the mask, part 4: finishing the mask, and part 5: hands and legs.
Okay, just a few steps left! Read more…
“Gras-goyle” gargoyle costume, WIP part 5: hands and legs
This is part five of my gargoyle costume project for Mardi Gras 2025! If you wanna start at the beginning, check out part 1: column, part 2: wings, part 3: starting the mask, and part 4: finishing the mask.
Now then, where were we? Oh yeah, time to make the gargoyle’s hands and legs! These will be part of the illusion I’m trying to pull off where my real legs are hidden in the column so it looks like my torso is attached to the fake crouched legs on top. Read more…
“Gras-goyle” gargoyle costume, WIP part 4: mask finished!
This is the second half of my gargoyle mask project for Mardi Gras 2025 — here’s the first half of this mask project. You can also check out part 1: column and part 2: wings.
In my last article, I’d made the basic gargoyle head shape and lots of parts: ears, horns, nose ring, tongue, etc. Just a couple more pieces and it’s time to put it all together, and to make the thing wearable… Read more…
“Gras-goyle” gargoyle costume, WIP part 3: mask!
I’m currently working on this paper maché gargoyle mask for Mardi Gras 2025; it’s about halfway done! Check out my previous articles for this costume, part 2: gargoyle wings and part 1: the stone column.
Creating the armature
“Gras-goyle” gargoyle costume, WIP part 2: wings!
These here wings are the second piece I made for my gargoyle costume for Mardi Gras 2025; they’re not painted yet! See part one here: making the stone column.
My goal with these wings was to make a lightweight wearable paper maché sculpture that looks like a pair of wings carved from stone, like you might see on a gargoyle on a church, or an angel statue on a tomb. Read more…
“Gras-goyle” gargoyle costume for Mardi Gras 2025, WIP part 1!
I’ve already started on my Mardi Gras costume for next year! I’m doing something really ambitious (for me); a gargoyle costume where my legs are hidden in a fake stone column, with fake crouched legs on top, and then I’ll have wings on my back and of course a gargoyle mask. I knew this would take a lot of time and effort so I started on the column part back in May of 2024! Here’s how I made the column and pedestal… Read more…
Audrey II mask!
All right, this one wasn’t my project, but I want to take a minute to tell you about my wife’s Audrey II mask! Of course Audrey II is the killer plant in Little Shop of Horrors. Check out how we made this thing!
Easy method for symmetrical horns
Experiment time! I’ve made horns for a ton of masks and things, and I’ve used different methods, which were all frustrating for different reasons; generally the problem is that it’s difficult or impossible to make horns from scratch that are truly symmetrical. Read more…
One-day challenge: Halloween devil mask
TMI backstory here; feel free to skip! Every Halloween I run into the same problem: I put a few months of effort into our Halloween party decorations as well as my costume for the party, but our party is always the Saturday before Halloween, and then on Halloween night I never have a great costume; I usually half-ass something at the last minute. Read more…
Giant eyeball masks for Halloween 2024!
For our Monster Prom Halloween party, my wife and I made matching giant eyeball masks. They were fun to make and easy to wear, and they were a big hit at our party! Here’s how we made ’em… Read more…
Eyeball/tongue monster!
This batshit thing is my wife’s project and I love it! She actually made most of the parts last year; there were some problems with the first version of the eyestalks, so she scrapped those after our party and kept the eyes and the hands, and this year she made new improved eyestalks as well as a new base and she reassembled everything. Read more…
Monster punch bowl and ladle
My wife made this hilarious thing! It’s huge; about 30″ across and maybe 18″ tall.
She made the base of the bowl out of foam board, starting with a huge circle and then creating the 3D bowl shape with a bunch of foam board panels. Picture the bowl shape in profile — basically a half-circle — and then slice that down the middle to create a quarter-circle. She traced and cut out 32 of these and then hot-glued them in place onto the circle. Read more…
Giant heart photo backdrop for Monster Prom
This thing was pretty easy!
Making the heart and banner
I designed the heart on paper and then messed with it in Photoshop to make it perfectly symmetric and stuff. I transferred the drawing to a giant panel of foam board using the grid method — you know, you put your small drawing in a grid, and then draw a large grid onto a large surface, and sketch the pieces square by square until it all comes together. Pretty easy once you dive it and try it, really! Read more…
Foam board keytar prop
I made this simple 1980s keytar prop for my Frankenstein keytar player statue for our monster new wave band.
I made this in a very similar way to how I made my foam guitar prop. Another easy and fun one! It’s really just mostly foam board with a little hot glue and a lot of tape. Read more…
Foam board guitar prop
I made this very simple foam guitar prop for the demonic singer of our monster new wave band. It was so easy and fun to make! It’s really just mostly foam board with a little hot glue and a lot of tape.
I first drew and cut out a guitar shape from foam board. I traced the head and neck to make a second foam board copy of those and glued them in place behind the main shape. Read more…
Monster Prom band, part 3: Frankenstein keytarist!
Last but not least! I learned a lot of important lessons when I was working on our demonic singer — mostly that I didn’t want to do anything that complicated again for a long time! :) So I figured out ways to make our Frankenstein monster keytarist a lot simpler. The key here was to keep most of the shapes much more geometric and simple rather than organic and curvy. You can see the guy’s torso and legs and left arm are basically just simple box shapes. Read more…
Monster Prom band, part 2: demon singer!
This demonic singer lady is one of the most challenging things I’ve ever made! I wanted to try to make a free-standing life-size human figure, using just my normal techniques with foam board and tape and stuff. This was a first for me and it worked out pretty well!
I started with the legs; it was critical to design these to be strong enough to stand up on their own and to support the weight of the figure. (Although I cheated a bit with the microphone stand; coming up.) Read more…
How to make a 4-foot paper maché alligator
My violin skull mask, Mardi Gras 2015
Three-headed paper maché dragon sculpture