Posts tagged "foam board":
Skull mask with dancing skeletons, part 4
This is part four of my skull mask project with rotating gears and marching skeletons. See parts one, two, and three.
Installing the hard hat
Almost all of my big paper maché masks are mounted on a hard hat. Hard hats are great because they’re cheap and they provide a lot of comfort and stability in a big mask. I usually saw off some parts of the hard hat for each mask depending on its shape, in order to reduce weight and to help the hard hat fit in the mask as well as possible. Read more…
Skull mask with dancing skeletons, part 3
This is part three of my skull mask project with rotating gears and marching skeletons. See parts one and two.
Building the skull shape
In part one I built the whole mechanism with the gears inside of a big circular wall; this would become the outer wall of the skull mask at around ear-level (not my ears, the skull’s ears — uh, wait a minute…). Read more…
Paper maché skull mask with dancing skeletons, part 2
This is part two of my skull mask project with rotating gears and marching skeletons. See part one here.
Dancing skeletons
I drew all 29 of the dancing skeletons at a larger size (about 6″ tall) on sketchbook paper, keeping the designs as simple as possible since I’d be re-painting them by hand at a much smaller size. I scanned ’em and cleaned ’em up in Photoshop, reduced them to about 2″ tall, and printed them out. Read more…
Skull mask with dancing skeletons, part 1
Welcome to the newest installment in my ongoing quest to kill myself with overly complicated art projects! For the 20th anniversary of my skeleton group I decided to make a paper maché skull mask with moving parts! Yikes! The mask has a crank and gears and 29 little skeleton figurines representing my fellow skeletons; a sort of best-of selection of our skull masks and skeleton outfits over the last two decades. Here’s how I made the thing!
Giant witch statue! — part 1
My fiancée and I made this giant 8-foot witch statue for our 2018 Halloween party! This is by far the biggest thing we’ve ever made. It was a great learning experience. Here’s how we did it…
I used my fiancée as a model for the witch! I had her pose with a broom and I took pictures from various sides to use for reference. Read more…
Making a foam board Egyptian sarcophagus
I made this standing sarcophagus for Halloween 2017 — basically a big selfie booth! Here’s how I did it…
I started by planning out the dimensions of the sarcophagus in Photoshop. The red and cyan boxes represent 30″ x 20″ sheets of foam board, and the grid is square inches, with dotted lines to denote feet. I don’t have a Photoshop template for this stuff; I just wing it and lay out and measure whatever parts I think are going to be important. You can see that my design was 6’2″. I built the sarcophagus at this size and later decided to add three more inches at the bottom, for a total of 6’5″. Read more…
Cuckoo clock skull mask, Mardi Gras 2016
Behold my cuckoo clock skull mask for Mardi Gras 2016! Wow, this one was complicated and fun! Here’s the short version…
This mask was made up of a lot of individual paper maché parts that I built separately and assembled. Here’s a very quick rundown of the parts and what they’re made of:
Making foam board antlers
My fiancée needed antlers for her Halloween costume — swamp goddess; it’s a long story — and I made up this method that worked great!
First I drew an antler shape on drawing paper and got the lady’s approval. I kept the shape a little bit on the thick side; I thought this would be important in order to keep the antlers from being too fragile, but it turned out to be unnecessary. If I were doing this again I’d draw the antlers a little thinner.
Making a foam board coffin
One of my main decorations for my Voodoo Bayou party was this fake wooden coffin; I wanted to have it standing in the corner of the living room so people could pose for pictures in it. The main material in the coffin is foam board — 17 sheets total. I designed the coffin in Photoshop based on how large each sheet of foam board is: 20″x30″. Here’s my basic design:
How to make a fake wood grain texture for signs and other projects
Believe it or not, these signs are just foam board! Plus a little spray paint and wood stain. I experimented with a few techniques, and here’s what I came up with…
For the big Voodoo Bayou sign, I started by cutting out my foam board shapes and spray painting them with a light tan color. You can see that color on the white foam board at left, below:
Working with foam board for art projects; cutting, painting, etc
I use foam board (aka foam core) in almost all my big projects — masks, Halloween decorations, etc — and I’ve learned a lot of techniques that help make working with it a lot easier.
First, check out my article about buying cheap foam board in bulk. I’ve found that the cheap stuff is much easier to work with, and it’s less than half the price of the good stuff you’d buy in an art store!
Craft materials — choosing the right brands and saving some money
I use a few basic craft materials in all my big masks and decorations, and I’ve experimented with a lot of brands over the years. While I try to be cost efficient with all my projects, I’ve come to realize that for certain materials you can definitely use cheap stuff with great (or even superior) results, while for other materials you’re much, much better off buying high quality stuff. Here’s a rundown of the stuff I use and what I’ve learned about the various qualities that are out there.
Best deal I’ve found for buying foam board: Deals/Dollar Tree
I use foam board (aka foam core) for the base of almost all my big art projects: my paper maché masks, Halloween decorations, etc. I go through tons of this stuff, and I’ve finally found a really great deal for buying it in bulk.
I have a Deals store (aka Deal$) near me, and they used to carry foam board in their store for just a dollar per 20″x30″ sheet; this was an amazing deal, as the art store near my house charges $2.41 per sheet, according to their website. I was bummed that my local Deals store stopped carrying the stuff, but I later found out you can order it on their site, in boxes of 25 sheets, for $25! And you can choose the “pick up in store” option so there’s no shipping charge! Fantastic.
Read more…
Spooky mausoleum drawers Halloween decoration
I was in charge of creating some decorations for a huge cemetery-themed Halloween party at a friend’s house several years back, and we decided to turn the dining room into a morgue/mausoleum by putting fake marble drawers on the wall. These were fun and extremely easy to make, and they’re great for a cemetery-themed party, a zombie-themed party, an asylum-themed party, etc. Here are the materials I used:
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My paper maché method for masks, Halloween projects, etc
Paper maché (aka papier-mâché aka paper mache) is the foundation of most of my Mardi Gras masks, Halloween decorations and costumes, etc. Everyone who does paper maché has their own favorite materials, recipes, and methods. I’ve tried a ton of combinations and this is the best paper maché recipe and process I’ve found. The main materials I use are:
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About Manning Krull
How to make a 4-foot paper maché alligator
My violin skull mask, Mardi Gras 2015
Three-headed paper maché dragon sculpture