Manning Makes Stuff - Halloween decorations, paper mache masks, costumes, party ideas, and more

Manning Makes Stuff - Halloween decorations, paper mache masks, costumes, party ideas, and more

Posts tagged "mask making":

Big brain alien costume!

I made this big-brain alien costume for Halloween 2023! Here’s how I done did it!

Me wearing my alien costume

Hooboy, this was one of those projects where I was in such a rush I didn’t take nearly as many process pics as I usually do. But I can give you the gist of how I did all this. I started out with the three basic big shapes: the shoulder armor, the head tube thing, and the brain. Read more…

Published by Manning on October 31st, 2023 | 2 Comments

Creature from the Black Lagoon mask, part 2

This part 2 of my Creature from the Black Lagoon(/Bayou?) mask process. See part 1 here!

Okay, so the paper mache for the Creature head was all done, and now it’s time for painting all the other finishing touches.

Painting the Creature head

For all my big masks, I always use some kind of base coat before moving on to spray paint. This time I tried something new: I started with a coat of Mod Podge (paid link) that I brushed on; Read more…

Published by Manning on February 6th, 2023 | 2 Comments

Creature from the Black Lagoon mask, WIP part 1

For Mardi Gras 2023 I made a Creature from the Black Lagoon(/Bayou?) mask and costume! I makde this stuff for my second year marching with my Mardi Gras krewe, Cryptique. Here’s my article about making the mask!

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Published by Manning on January 5th, 2023 | 3 Comments

Pro wrestler skeleton costumes for Mardi Gras 2022!

Pro wrestler skeleton costumes - THE SKULL KRUSHERS!

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…

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Published by Manning on March 7th, 2022 | No Comments

Pumpkin Night custom paper maché mask!

I made this custom Pumpkin Night paper maché mask for a wonderful client! Here’s how I made it! (And check out my page about custom work!)

Pumpkin Night mask - by Manning Krull

I wasn’t aware of the Pumpkin Night manga so of course I started with lots of Google image search results. What a cool design! I’d never done anything like this before!

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Published by Manning on February 28th, 2021 | 31 Comments

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…

Published by Manning on March 5th, 2019 | 2 Comments

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…

Published by Manning on March 5th, 2019 | No Comments

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.

Attaching the skeletons to the rings

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…

Published by Manning on March 5th, 2019 | No Comments

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!

Skull mask with gears and rotating rings

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Published by Manning on March 5th, 2019 | 2 Comments

Making paper maché shapes with a reusable base

This is my method for creating multiple paper maché copies of a shape using a reusable base. I’ve tried different variations on these steps over the last few years and have settled on this process as my favorite.

Start with a base

First, you wanna build a base for your sculpture, so that you can cover it in paper maché and make copies of it. Read more…

Published by Manning on April 7th, 2018 | No Comments

Attaching a hard hat in a paper maché mask

Hello! I’m just putting this long boring article here so I can link to it from other posts rather than explain the same thing every time. I mount almost all of my big paper maché masks on a hard hat. Obviously all my masks are very different shapes and sizes, so a lot of this can vary, but this is my basic method that I’ve settled on…

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Published by Manning on April 4th, 2018 | 2 Comments

Axeman skull mask! — part 2

Axe Man paper mache skull mask

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.

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Published by Manning on February 12th, 2018 | No Comments

Axe Man skull mask for Mardi Gras 2018

Axe Man paper mache skull mask

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.

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Published by Manning on February 12th, 2018 | 2 Comments

Twin paper maché skull masks

A new project, a new experiment! I received a custom order for a pair of twin paper maché skull masks; the request was to base them on the design of my first Mardi Gras skull mask and keep them more or less identical, and there was a very short timeline to get them both done. So, I decided to try a reusable base! This was a first for me.

Twin paper mache skull masks - finished!

Luckily I have that article about how I made that first Mardi Gras skull five years ago; otherwise I probably wouldn’t remember how I did it! Of course it would be impossible to get these new ones exactly the same as that one, but I’d do my best to get them close. Read more…

Published by Manning on March 20th, 2017 | 9 Comments

Teeth-making tips for big paper maché masks

In all of the large paper maché masks and heads I’ve made, the teeth are always, always the most labor-intensive and challenging (and sometimes frustrating!) part. I’m always amazed at what a large proportion of my time and effort go into such a small part of the head! I’ve tried a few different methods for making teeth over the years, with varied success. Here are the methods I’ve used, and some pros and Cons:

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Published by Manning on October 3rd, 2016 | 2 Comments

Making big paper maché masks — advanced tips

In making all my big paper maché masks I’ve learned a lot of important things along the way — things I could only figure out through trial and error, but now that I know about them they’re a huge help in every subsequent mask I make. I’m by no means an expert! I’ve only made four big skull masks so far, and I have two more in the works (one skull and one non-skull) but with each one I can see them getting easier and easier to make and to wear, thanks to these tricks I’ve worked out over the years. Here are some of them…

Making big paper maché masks - advanced tips

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Published by Manning on October 1st, 2016 | 16 Comments