Posts tagged "mardi gras":
Introducing Cryptique!
I’m excited to announce I’ve got a new Mardi Gras krewe! Cryptique, Krewe of Cemetery Shamblers is a brand new phantasmagorical walking krewe in New Orleans, put together by me and a few friends just a couple weeks before Mardi Gras 2022. Read more…
Pro wrestler skeleton costumes for Mardi Gras 2022!
Many months ago while brainstorming ideas for our new Mardi Gras skulls/costumes, my wife had the great idea for us to be skeleton pro wrestlers; we decided to be a tag team, and I came up with the name The Skull Krushers! These costumes were extremely fun to wear for our first march with Cryptique! Here’s how we made our skull masks…
Mardi Gras 2021 — I made a skull mask of my own damn head!
For Mardi Gras 2021, my wife and I made skull masks of ourselves! This was all her idea, and it was super fun to plan out how to do it and then watch it all come together.
Here’s how I made my skull!
Spider skeleton costume for Mardi Gras 2020! — part 2
I made this six-armed spider skeleton costume for Mardi Gras 2020! This is part two; see part one here for how I made the mask. A lot of people have asked me: why only six arms, rather than eight? — ’cause with my legs that’s eight limbs total, duh! Anywhere, here’s how I made all this stuff!
Spider skull mask and costume for Mardi Gras 2020! — part 1
I made this spider skull mask and six-armed spider skeleton costume for Mardi Gras 2020! I know, I know, spiders don’t have bones; they got like an exoskeleton or somethin’. Deal with it, nerds. Anyway I’m really happy with how this whole thing came out, and now I’m going to bore you with every detail of how I made it!
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!
Axeman skull mask! — part 2
This is part two of my Axeman paper maché skull mask for Mardi Gras 2018; see part one here.
Making the mustache
You may remember from part one I wanted to make the mustache attach to the skull with magnets so it’s removable. Here’s my convoluted process for designing the mustache, getting it to match the curvature of the skull, and getting the placement of the magnets correct.
Axe Man skull mask for Mardi Gras 2018
Here’s my Axe Man skeleton costume for Mardi Gras 2018! The Axe Man was a semi-legendary serial killer in New Orleans in 1918-1919; you can read all about him here. This year our skeleton group designed skulls and costumes based on figures from New Orleans history, to celebrate the city’s tricentennial, so of course I picked the creepiest guy I could find. Here’s how I made his skull mask, and don’t miss my other article about making the oversized paper maché axe prop.
Painting a skeleton shirt with fabric paint
I’ve already posted two articles about painting skeleton clothes — my first skeleton suit, and a new pair of skeleton pants — and I learn something new every time I paint up some new clothes.
I’ve been wearing my skeleton suit every Mardi Gras for years now, usually with a black dress shirt, sometimes with a tie and/or vest, but last Mardi Gras (2017) was so warm it made me realize I also need an option that doesn’t involve layers. So I decided to paint this skeleton dress shirt. Read more…
Three-headed paper maché dragon sculpture! — part 2
This is part two of two of Isabella the dragon! See the first part here.
The sea serpent’s bodies and heads and fins and other various parts were done, but I had to do some other steps before assembling them. It made sense to switch gears here and work on the pedestal and tray area, to figure out how they’ll fit with the dragons.
Three-headed paper maché dragon sculpture! — part 1
This was an incredibly fun commission piece I got to work on! I was contacted by a member of the Crewe of Columbus, a Mardi Gras crewe in Mobile, Alabama, and asked to make a sculpture of one of their parade floats — a very charming three-headed sea serpent(/dragon) named Isabella. The sculpture would have a serving tray area on top and be the centerpiece on one of the buffet tables at the group’s annual ball. The client sent me tons of photos of the Isabella float and asked for a sculpture that was approximately 40″ long from head(s) to tail(s). I couldn’t wait to get started!
Wolf skull mask — part 4; making the ears
This is part 4 of my paper maché wolf skull mask; see part 1 here.
I wanted to give my wolf skull some ears; I had this idea because in researching wolf skulls I realized that basically all carnivorous mammals’ skulls look almost indistinguishable, and the main different from one mammal head to another is the ears. So my hope is that adding ears will help people recognize my skull as a wolf (or at least a dog! I’ll settle for a dog!). Read more…
Wolf skull mask — part 3; painting, etc.
Painting the wolf skull
Before painting the wolf skull mask, I applied a coat of gesso over the whole thing. Gesso is a thick white paint-like substance that can help smooth out any imperfections in your paper maché surface. In this case it really helped smooth out the teeth in particular.
Paper maché wolf skull mask — part 2
What big teeth you have!
Hooboy, the teeth were one of the hardest and most time consuming parts of this whole mask project! Like I mentioned in part 1, the four big fangs were made out of foam insulation tubing and masking tape; those were pretty easy. I tried a few different methods for the other teeth; I’ll spare you my failures and just show you where I ended up…
Paper maché wolf skull mask — part 1
I made this here paper maché wolf skull mask for Mardi Gras 2017! It’s got detachable ears, a movable jaw, and it’s one of my most lightweight and comfortable skull masks yet. It was a lot of fun to make; here’s how I did it!
Painting new skeleton pants
I’ve been wearing my hand-painted skeleton suit for five Mardi Gras in a row now, with a few Halloweens thrown in there as well, and for some reason the pants seem to be harder to squeeze into every year! Huh! I wonder how that could be; they must keep shrinking in the wash a little more every single year! Yeah, that’s gotta be it. So anyway, it’s reached a point where I absolutely needed to make new ones for this Mardi Gras; last year I seriously thought they might split open on me during a parade! I learned a lot from how I made these last time, and luckily this was a much more successful project my second time around…
A video of my cuckoo clock skull mask in action!
A friend of mine took this video of me opening and closing my mask on Mardi Gras morning, around 9am at Jackson Square. The hinge mechanism in the door (made from a plastic file folder and some magnets) held up great over the course of the long day. Check out parts one, two, and three of my process for making this mask, and the article I wrote about making the little cuckoo bird skeleton. Fun!
My paper maché method for masks, Halloween projects, etc
My paper maché gallery
Info on ordering custom paper maché pieces!
About Manning Krull
How to make a 4-foot paper maché alligator
My violin skull mask, Mardi Gras 2015