Tons of tips for paper maché projects; sculpting, painting, etc
Published November 9th, 2024. Last updated July 24, 2026.
Hello! I'm going to use this space to jot down any and all tips I can think of regarding my paper maché mask and sculpture projects, so I can easily point people at them later. Let me know if there's anything else I should add!
Jump down to a section:
Paper maché
See my full article about my paper maché process for way more info.
I use Roman Pro-543 wallpaper adhesive (paid link) for all my paper maché projects. No mixing; the adhesive is ready to go right out of the container.
I use alternating layers of newspaper and brown paper so I can keep track of what I've covered.
I sometimes like to finish my paper maché projects with a layer of white paper (I buy white paper bags; paid link), rather than newspaper or brown paper, because a white surface makes color pop. You can also do a white base coat of paint, but that's more money, and you gotta let the white paint dry/set before moving on to other colors.
Paper maché: speed up drying
When you're done with paper maché, use a paper towel or damp sponge to wipe off any excess blobs of paste.
An electric fan greatly speeds up drying! Point the fan directly at the project, very close, and either rotate the project or move the fan every hour or so. Direct sunlight really helps speed up drying! However, if the weather is very humid you're probably better off inside with a fan.
Mask-making
Most of my large paper maché masks start with a big sculpture, and then I (usually) install a hard hat, screen material, and sometimes a counterweight.
Installing a hard hat in a big mask is a great way to make it wearable and comfortable and stable on your head.
I usually modify the hard hat by cutting holes in the sides with a Dremel tool or tiny hand saw. This makes it much easier to attach other materials to the hard hat in order to connect it inside the mask, e.g. wire, wooden dowels, tape, paper maché, etc.
Recently I've done some experiments where I skip the hard hat and instead make a structure out of foam board and paper maché to fit on my head, with makeup pads glued inside for comfort and stability. This works really well too.
Of course any mask needs eye holes for visibility. Along with eye holes, I basically put as many holes in my masks as possible, to help with vision (especially downward) as well as hearing and air circulation (in the sides/back). For holes I'll be looking through, I install pieces of screen door material, specifically pet screen (paid link), which is thicker than regular screen door material. For holes where I don't need to see, I use thicker plastic mesh material (paid link). Both of these types of screen can be painted (carefully!).
When spray-painting screen material, the paint can sometimes pool in the holes and clog them. The solution for this is to immediately blow on it to clear out the holes.
When spray-painting screen material, it's important not to do it while it's laying flat on a surface, as the paint will go through and make the screen stick to the surface. I always build a little structure out of foam board to hold the screen over empty space for spray-painting.
My method for attaching screen material in the mask is to hot-glue little folded tabs of paper around the edges of the screen — not everywhere, just a few like at the corners or wherever — and then hot-glue these tabs into the mask. This is much, much easier than trying to hot-glue the screen directly into a mask.
If a large mask is unbalanced, a counterweight will make it much easier to wear. I just glue pennies or rocks in the side opposite the heavy part. You can set the mask on a broom handle to see which way it leans, and keep adjusting until it's balanced. A mask with a counterweight in it will feel heavier in your hands (obviously) but actually feels lighter on your head because your head and neck don't have to work as hard to keep it steady.
I build a simple vertical base to store my masks on. This helps prevent warping. If they just sit on a shelf or whatever, the tend to warp under their own weight over time.
Foam board
Foam board (aka foam core) is the main material I use when building the base for all of my paper maché sculptures.
I buy cheap foam board in bulk from Dollar Tree; currently $1.25 per 30"x20" sheet. This cheap stuff is easier to cut, bend, and curl than the good stuff from the art store — which is also a lot more expensive.
Did I say bend and curl? Yup, that's right, with cheap foam board you can carefully roll the foam while crunching it up in your hands to make all sorts of curved shapes; the more you crunch it up the more pliable it gets. You can also soften up two piece of foam board this way, then glue them together with any kind of weird curve, and when the glue sets they'll be permanently locked in that position, nice and solid.
I use an X-acto knife to cut the sheets of foam; it's important to change the blade pretty often. You'll feel it when it's time.
Smoothing out surfaces (pre-paper maché)
When I'm building a base for a paper maché project, I usually use different materials like foam board, bits of foam packaging, etc, all glued and taped together. Something I frequently need to do is to smooth out a connecting area between two different objects. My preferred method for this is to tear up little strips of construction paper, tape them over the area with masking tape, and then cover the whole area with more masking tape. This method can smooth out unwanted edges, gaps, etc.
Another great way to smooth out surfaces is with foam clay (paid link). You can fill any gaps with foam clay, let it set, and then put masking tape over it to get a really smooth surface, ready for paper maché. (More on foam clay below.)
Clay
I use a lot of foam clay (paid link) when building the bases of my masks and sculptures, before covering them with tape and then with paper maché. Foam clay is great for a lot of reasons. It's very easy to work with, it's not messy at all, it's very lightweight, and you don't have to worry about baking it or anything like that, as it air dries.
However, foam clay tends to sag and smooth itself out while it dries, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what you're doing. Example: I wanted to make a bunch of big conical monster teeth, about two inches long by an inch wide at the base. I sculpted a dozen or so and stood them up to dry. The next morning, they had all smooshed down into little dome shapes, barely pointy. It was kind of hilarious. So in order to make something skinny like a tooth, you have to sculpt it onto a base, like a coffee stirrer or a piece of drinking straw. You can also get creative about working with gravity by letting your piece dry while hanging rather than standing. Etc etc.
The nice thing about this quality of foam clay is that it actually smooths itself out really nicely while drying, so if you cover an area with a relatively flat layer of foam clay, it may look a bit lumpy and be kind of hard to smooth out, but when you come back the next day it's smoothed itself out really nicely on its own as it dried. Do some experiments, you'll see what I mean. Anyway, I love this stuff.
Another interesting quality of foam clay is that it remains somewhat flexible and rubbery when it dries, although this can change over time. Let's go back to that example of teeth. After setting for one day, the clay will be totally dry but will remain somewhat soft and flexible — but it's definitely set; you can't resculpt it or change it or anything. It's just somewhat soft. However, over a week or two the piece will begin to feel a lot more solid. You'll always be able to press your finger into it a little bit, but it will become much denser over time. Again, this can be good or bad, depending on what you're going for.
Once foam clay is dry, it takes tape and paint and hot glue and paper maché very well. Before it's dry, tape won't want to stick to it.
I also sometimes use modeling clay for certain things — usually Activa air-dry clay (paid link) — when foam clay isn't precise enough, and when I don't need to worry about weight, as this kind of clay is way heavier. An example: Foam clay works great for a monster's eyebrow ridges, but it isn't precise enough for things like nostrils; if you sculpt nostrils with foam clay, they'll sag and smooth out and lose their definition. Whereas with modeling clay, you can sculpt very precise shapes like nostrils and they'll dry in exactly that shape. Hard to explain but if you mess with both types of clay you'll see what I mean.
Hot glue
Gorilla Glue hot glue sticks (paid link) are much stronger than the regular cheap-o hot glue sticks. Gorilla Glue hot glue sticks also do a much better job of sticking to materials that the cheap ones don't want to, like spray-painted surfaces, plastic, craft foam, etc.
If you want something to set immediately, use tiny drops of glue. If you want to have time to move the thing around a bit, use larger drops of glue.
If the piece you're working on is small, you can make hot glue set much faster by putting the piece in the freezer (or fridge) for 15-30 seconds.
When hot-gluing two things together that aren't very porous — like two spray-painted paper maché things — I scratch up the surfaces with a knife, and/or poke holes into them with an awl in order to create tiny nooks and crannies for the glue to hold onto better.
Back to topGorilla Glue
We're talking normal glue in a bottle here, not hot glue. I use Gorilla Glue (paid link) for anything where I need an extremely strong connection. It's important to note, this stuff expands a huge amount as it dries. This can cause your objects to get pushed apart or move out of position. When I'm using Gorilla Glue I do various things to lock the objects in place. Sometimes this means putting a lot of weight on them (e.g. books, or rocks in a bag). Sometimes it means wedging the objects between two heavy things, like chairs. Sometimes it means wrapping them in blue painter's tape (or even string) so they can't move.
A trick I sometimes use when Gorilla-Gluing two things together is to put a few drops of Gorilla Glue in the center of the area, and then make a circle of drops of hot glue around that, then press the two things together. The hot glue sets in just a minute or so while the Gorilla Glue takes an hour or two to set (and then several more hours to completely dry). So the hot glue will hold the things together in the correct position while the much stronger Gorilla Glue takes its time to set.
There's also a version of Gorilla Glue that doesn't expand — it's the clear kind rather than amber colored — but I don't use it very often because I find that the expansion of the regular kind really helps lock pieces together.
Other types of glue
I'm putting this here just to mention that 99% of the times that I need glue I use either hot glue or Gorilla Glue, as mentioned above. Once in a while I'll use some Elmer's Glue or Tacky Glue for certain things, and that's just about it. Mod Podge can also be used as glue for things that are porous and lightweight, like especially when I'm gluing a piece of paper down flat on a surface, like a fake label on a fake bottle.
Painting
A coat of Mod Podge (paid link) will seriously smooth out your paper maché surface before painting. It won't hide big bumps and wrinkles, but it can totally hide the torn edges of the paper.
When applying Mod Podge to a large project, I first mix a few drops of acrylic paint into the Mod Podge, as this lets me see what areas I've covered. Without this, it can be hard to keep track of where you've applied the Mod Podge, as it dries and turns clear very quickly.
I used to use gesso rather than Mod Podge, but I've found, for my projects, Mod Podge is a better fit. It tends to go on smoother than gesso, although this may be because I use cheap brushes, which maybe don't allow the gesso to smooth out perfectly. Mod Podge just smoothes itself out. However, the nice thing about gesso is that it's (usually) white, which gives you a base coat for whatever paint job you're going to do.
I used to use really cheap acrylic paint — any ol' brand — but I've recently upgraded to Liquitex Basics Fluid paints (paid link), which are only a little more expensive, and much nicer quality.
I used to thin acrylic paints with water, but I've upgraded to using acrylic medium (paid link) and it's really made a difference!
For a lot of painting projects, I'll mix up three main colors: the basic color for the whole piece, then a darker version of that for shadows (often with a little blue for coolness), and a lighter version for highlights (often with a little yellow for warmth). I mix these up in little disposable plastic cups, and I'll put a "lid" of poster board over them to keep them good for a few days. If I'm being fancy I'll cover the poster board in shipping tape to make it less porous so less air gets in.
I don't waste a lot of money on brushes; I buy whatever cheap brushes come in a set with many different shapes and sizes.
For large projects, I sometimes use an old sponge, cut into quarters, to apply acrylic paint. This can go a lot faster and give you nice even coverage. However, it's a bit wasteful, as some of the paint is going to stay in the sponge and you're ultimately just going to rinse it out and lose it down the drain.
A sponge is great for covering large areas, but you can also use it to paint thick lines and shapes, and even create a sort of stippling effect by dabbing it at your surface.
Spray paint
Do not buy the Lowe's brand of spray paint. I've had several cans that were just total duds — like, wouldn't spray at all (even after replacing the nozzle), and one that seemed like it was mixed totally wrong; it was supposed to be bright pink but it was weirdly milky and didn't match the cap. Anyway, the Lowe's brand might be tempting because it's cheap, but with how often the cans are bad it's just not worth it.
The main brands of spray paint that I like are Rustoleum (fairly cheap, great for less important projects) and Montana Gold (more expensive, high-end, for important projects).
For whatever it's worth, although the Montana Gold spray paint cans are more expensive, I seriously think they last much longer than other brands of spray paint — meaning you get way more coverage out of them. They also have an incredible range of colors, way more than you'll find with cheaper brands.
If you do use Montana Gold spray paint, two things to be aware of: 1. Before you can use the can, you have to remove the nozzle and then remove the black washer that's underneath. It's there to prevent the can from spraying during transport or whatever. 2. When you're done painting, you have to clear the nozzle by turning the can upside down and spraying short bursts; keep an eye on the spray coming out, and when it becomes clear that means you're good. If you don't do this, the nozzle will become permanently clogged.
With spray paint, I can't stress this enough: shake the can for a long, long time. If you don't shake it long enough, several different problems can occur. The paint may come out in big drops that land on your project and look bad. The paint might not come out at all, and the nozzle might get stuck in the down position. Anyway, just shake for at least one minute; I usually try to do two minutes.
If the can was stored somewhere cold (like a shed), I recommend bringing it inside to warm it up for an hour before shaking and then using. It's okay to go back outside in the cold to do the spray painting, as long as it's not below freezing.
If you want to use blue painter's tape to mask out an area on already-painted piece, here are some tips...
1. Let the base coat set for at least 48 hours before applying tape; otherwise there's a large risk of the tape damaging the base coat.
2. If you're applying painter's tape onto a paper maché surface, the surface should have at least three or four layers of paper maché on it. Anything less and there's a much greater risk of the tape tearing the paper when you remove it. This is true whether the surface is already painted or not.
3. Do not leave the tape on for a long time. Apply the tape only when you're ready to do the spray-painting. Leave it on for an hour or so after painting and then carefully remove it. If you leave it on too long, there's a much greater risk it'll damage the base coat when you remove it.
4. Nicer quality painter's tape is much less likely to damage your surface. This is one time where it's important to buy the expensive stuff.
If you get spray paint on your hands, you can rub lotion into your hands — or olive oil! — and then wash your hands with soap and water and a sponge, and that'll help a lot of the paint come off. The lotion/oil actually helps soften your dead skin cells so they come off when you wash your hands. So this trick only works about once per day!
Back to topGlitter
I've used spray glitter several times, with varying degrees of success; I've had enough bad luck and frustration with it that I will probably not use it again. Over the years I've bought several cans that were complete duds; they either would not spray at all, or they'd spray for a minute and then get completely clogged, with no way to fix them. I think the technology just isn't good enough to prevent clogging, for any brand of spray glitter.
If you do use spray glitter, adding a coat of spray sealant for glitter afterward is important and works very well.
I've never used the method where you dump loose glitter onto glue; I do not want to deal with that level of mess. I hear from friends that you will never stop finding glitter in your house and on your person if you work with glitter this way. No thanks.
For whatever it's worth, loose glitter on glue creates a much more dramatic visual effect than spray glitter does. The reason is that spray glitter has to be really tiny pieces in order to work with the spray can. I preferred spray glitter for a while just because I didn't want to deal with the mess of regular glitter.
There's also the kind of glitter than you can paint on; this stuff is inexpensive at Michael's or whatever, and it can look great. However, a few tips:
Be aware, this paint-on glitter is really just bits of glitter suspended in a clear gel. Let's say you buy red. If you paint this onto a white surface, you're just going to get red bits of glitter spread onto your white surface. The surface will not look red. This usually doesn't look good at all. (And seeing the bottle in the store is a little misleading because it looks solid red in the bottle.)
So to get the best results, what you want to do is paint the surface with the color that you actually want, e.g. red (with spray paint or acrylic paint or whatever), and then when that's dry, paint the red glitter paint onto that. That will give you a nice opaque colorful effect that looks great: a bright red surface covered with shiny red glitter.
Fyi, you may need to do many coats of the glitter paint to get the effect you want. One coat probably won't do it. Three is usually the minimum. The glitter goes on pretty sparse with the first coat, but you can definitely build up a nice effect with multiple coats.
Last thing about glitter paint: because it's glitter suspended in clear gel, there's an annoying thing that happens when you brush it on with your paint brush; the bits of glitter tend to get pushed to the sides of where you're painting, like the middle of the brush stroke often has very little glitter in it as most of the glitter collects at the sides of the brush stroke, creating thin glittery lines. The best way I've found to get more even coverage is to dab at the surface with the glitter paint rather than brush it on. This takes more time, and it may result in a surface that's not very smooth, as the glitter and gel may dry in tiny clumps. However, I've been satisfied with the results I've had working this way. If you're patient enough, you can get a very good glittery effect this way.
Foam
Along with foam board (aka foam core), mentioned above, I use a ton of different kinds of foam when building up 3D shapes for my projects. Here are the main types I use, basically in order from most used to least used:
Pipe insulation tubing (paid link) — You can buy these in six-foot tubes at Lowe's or wherever; I use them for tons of stuff. This foam is lightweight and soft but very firm, and it's easy to cut. These foam tubes are very cheap and they're probably the best value of anything I use, in terms of how much foam you get for your buck.
Craft foam (paid link) — You can get sheets of this stuff at craft stores; it's thin, rubbery, flexible foam that's easy to cut with scissors. Nice and cheap.
Foam clay (paid link) — A little more expensive, but totally worth it. Great for sculpting smaller, simple shapes where you don't need a lot of fine detail. Just bear in mind it tends to sag a lot as it sets. So, it's great for building up an eyebrow ridge or something relatively low. Not great for building teeth or horns that need to stand up (but you can sometimes make it work by building around a wire or something else inside.)
Foam backer rod (paid link) — This stuff is very expensive (for foam) so I don't use it much, but it's extremely useful for a ton of things. You can buy it in different widths on Amazon. I've used this stuff for fingers, tentacles, anything snake-like, or creating a ribbed texture, etc etc.
Random bits of foam packaging — I save all the weird foam bits that come with... well, everything! Hard styrofoam stuff, softer plasticky stuff, etc etc. Once in a while a piece of foam I saved a year or two ago is the perfect fit for something I'm making.
Styrofoam cups — super cheap and lightweight, easy to cut, and often very useful for various curved shapes. I've used pieces of styrofoam cups for teeth, cheekbones, eyebrow ridges, noses, etc.
Spray foam? A lot of artists use spray foam for sculpting, but I never have. The main reason I've avoided it is that everyone says it creates a HUGE mess when you carve it afterward, with tons of foam dust getting everywhere. No thanks. Maybe if I had a garage.
Not foam, but: bubble wrap. While I'm talking about all the materials I use to build up 3D shapes, I should mention bubble wrap. When I'm making a large shape, one way to smooth it out a bit and de-emphasize hard edges is to wrap it in bubble wrap. I take a 12" roll and cut it into long 3" strips, and then I wrap them tightly and carefully around the shape, securing them with tape.
Tape
I go through TONS of tape for all my paper maché projects; I think you'd be shocked to see how much I use throughout the year. I buy tape in bulk on Amazon a few times a year. The main kinds of tape I use are:
Scotch heavy duty shipping tape (paid link) — I use this tape whenever I'm connecting pieces of foam board together, which is very often. It creates a very strong connection with very little give to it. I also use this tape as a release agent just before paper maché; I cover my whole base sculpture with the tape (often torn/cut into thin strips), as paper maché doesn't stick very well to the plastic surface of the tape. That means when the paper maché is 100% dry, I can cut it open and it's relatively easy to remove all the base materials, leaving me with a hollow sculpture.
Note: they used to make a tan version of the heavy duty shipping tape; these days it's only available in clear. I really miss the tan kind, because it was so much easier to see where you'd covered.
Scotch masking tape (paid link) — I use tons of masking tape as a way to smooth out sculptures before paper maché. I will often cover a sculpture entirely in masking tape right before applying a layer of shipping tape as a release agent and then doing paper maché. I sometimes do two layers of masking tape to get an even smoother surface.
Scotch blue painter's tape (paid link) — I use this stuff whenever I want to mask out an area for spray-painting. I also sometimes use it as one of my two layers of masking tape when I'm smoothing out a shape before paper maché.
Release agent
A release agent is any kind of layer you put on a sculpture before applying paper maché, with the intention of easily removing the paper maché afterward. So, any kind of material that paper maché doesn't want to stick to can be a good release agent. This is important for projects where you need the finishd piece to be hollow, like a mask. I usually use heavy duty shipping tape as a release agent for all my masks. (See more about this in my section about tape, above.)
Other good release agents: Aluminum foil. Plastic wrap (like Saran wrap). A plastic shopping bag. Masking tape works okay but not great. All of these behave differently and you'll find that some are easier to fit neatly onto your sculpture than others.
Some people use petroleum jelly as a release agent; that sounds horrible and I've never tried it.
Along with a release agent, I sometimes design my base sculpture to be easy to break apart, which can make it much easier to remove once I've opened up the paper maché.
When I remove the base materials from a paper maché mask or sculpture, this sometimes involves cutting up the paper maché a lot, like sometimes even cutting it totally in half. Luckily it's easy to put the hollow sculpture back together. I just use masking tape to reconnect the sections of the paper maché, and then cover over the taped areas with two to four layers of paper maché. Usually this ends up looking totally seamless.
Drawing circles
See my article on my method for drawing precise circles. I find that I need to draw circles all the time for various art projects, usually because I need to cut out a disk of foam board in a specific size. Take a look through my gallery and you'll see tons of examples.
Making teeth
Making teeth for masks and sculptures is always the hardest thing! Here are some things you can use for teeth: foam board, cut into triangles. Plastic spoons, snipped to be half-ovals. (Put tape on them before you cut them to prevent cracking/exploding!) Foam clay or modeling clay sculpted onto toothpicks. (Watchout: modeling clay is heavy.) Aluminum foil sculpted into cone shapes and covered with paper maché. Pool noodle or foam pipe insultation tube, cut into triangles, covered with masking tape or paper maché. Note: I usually try to remove my base materials from all my paper maché sculptures, but teeth and eyes are two things I often leave in there.
Making eyes
I have a method for making eyeballs that's really easy and fun. I start with either dollar store Christmas ornaments, or ping pong balls, or any nice smooth sphere that's the correct size.
Then I cut out paper circles for the iris and pupil. I have a bunch of different sized hole punches for this, but you can also just trace a small circle from a bottle cap or something.
For the large circle, the iris, I use scissors to snip some little lines from the outside, pointing inward; maybe five or six. This will help the flat paper circle bold onto the spherical eyeball. I paint some Mod Podge onto the eyeball, stick the iris on there, and then flatten it down and cover it with Mod Podge to seal it in place. When that's dry, I do the same with the pupil. Having these pieces as layers of paper gives you a nice 3D shape to paint; you can use the raised edges as a guide.
I sometimes add tiny circles of white paper to act as little reflections on the eyeballs, like floating in the colored iris area.
Chickenwire?
I've only tried chickenwire a couple times and I have not had great success with it. I find it hard to work with and also just not fun to work with. I prefer materials that allow me to have some precision, or make something that's nice and symmetrical, etc.
Mask stands
For certain kinds of big paper maché masks, it's important to make some sort of stand to keep it on. If you set a hollow paper maché sculpture on a flat surface, it may warp and sag over time under its own weight. Putting it on a vertical stand, so all the weight is pulling downard from a central point at the top, can prevent this. I make bases out of wine bottles, or a rolled up piece of poster board set into a foam board base, etc etc. You can also use wood or plastic or anything else you've got laying around; I mostly put this here just so you know it's a thing you might wanna do!
Miscellaneous
Coming soon(?): some various tips on things like magnets, lights, using an airbrush, etc.