{"id":3646,"date":"2019-03-05T04:01:56","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T04:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/?p=3646"},"modified":"2022-02-16T22:21:04","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T22:21:04","slug":"skull-mask-dancing-skeletons-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/skull-mask-dancing-skeletons-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Paper mach\u00e9 skull mask with dancing skeletons, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is part two of my skull mask project with rotating gears and marching skeletons. <a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/skull-mask-dancing-skeletons-part-1\/\">See part one here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/foam-board-gears-48.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/foam-board-gears-48.jpg\" alt=\"Attaching the skeletons to the rings\"><\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Dancing skeletons<\/h2>\n<p>I drew all 29 of the dancing skeletons at a larger size (about 6&#8243; tall) on sketchbook paper, keeping the designs as simple as possible since I&#8217;d be re-painting them by hand at a much smaller size. I scanned &#8217;em and cleaned &#8217;em up in Photoshop, reduced them to about 2&#8243; tall, and printed them out. <!--more--> I printed out the skeletons as dark gray, rather than white, on a black background; more on that in a minute. Like I mentioned all the way at the top, I chose my favorite skull masks and costumes of each of my 28 current fellow group members (plus myself \u2014 I&#8217;m the <a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/my-violin-skull-mask-mardi-gras-2015\/\">violin<\/a>!) as a sort of best-of selection from the last 20 years.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/foam-board-gears-26.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/foam-board-gears-26.jpg\" alt=\"Tiny foam skeletons\"><\/a><\/p>\n <div class=\"ad-300x250 ad-float-right\">\r\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- MMS 300x250 -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:250px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5009313124668288\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"3616150394\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>I cut out the paper skeletons very loosely with lots of space around them, and pasted them onto sheets of black craft foam using the same wallpaper adhesive I use for paper mach\u00e9. I just spread some paste onto the foam with my hands, then laid the pieces of paper in place, and smoothed some more paste over them. I weighed down the edges of the craft foam with heavy books (protected with wax paper) so it wouldn&#8217;t curl up when drying. In the pic above you can see the paper skeletons after they&#8217;re dry; the craft foam warped a little bit but not too bad thanks to the books.<\/p>\n<p>I cut out the skeletons with scissors and then I used a tiny paintbrush and some black and white acrylic paint to re-do all the skeleton images; the dark gray print-outs are just there as a guide, as I wanted to make the skeletons look totally hand-made rather than printed. Don&#8217;t tell anybody I cheated by printing them! I used watered-down black paint to make the black parts of the print-outs even blacker, and I also touched up the white edges of the paper from where I cut them out; you&#8217;d be surprised but the edges of the paper can be very visible even though they&#8217;re so thin (like, paper-thin, one might even say). I painted the actual skeletons very very carefully with watered-down white paint; two coats each. I hate working at a small size like this! Why do I do this to myself?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/foam-board-gears-27.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/foam-board-gears-27.jpg\" alt=\"Tiny skeletons - painted\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A few of the skeletons have elements of color (like our Grande Poohbah&#8217;s blue hat), and I did those with acrylic paint as well.<\/p>\n<p>When it was time to mount the skeletons onto the rotating rings, I ended up using two different methods. I started with little pieces of wooden coffee stirrers; I snipped them with pliers and hot-glued them into an upside-down T-shape and then hot glued them and the skeletons in place. This ended up being a little bit labor-intensive, so I finished the whole top tier this way and then switched to a simpler method for the bottom tier: I simply cut little rectangles of the same black craft foam that I made the skeletons out of, hot glued these on the back of the skeletons to give them a little more width at the bottom, and then hot glued the skeletons onto the ring. Much faster and easier, and they hold on nice and firm.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/foam-board-gears-29.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/foam-board-gears-29.jpg\" alt=\"Mounting the skeletons on the rings\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Then I painted the stirrers and all that hot glue black. Did you know they make black hot glue sticks? I need to get me some of those.<\/p>\n<p>The skeletons are all slightly warped in exactly the same direction; they all curve forward a tiny bit, and this is totally fine. This happens whenever you paste paper onto foam like this; the paper expands a bit when it&#8217;s damp with the paste, and then you smooth it out flat on the foam, and when it dries it shrinks a bit, pulling itself into a slightly curved shape. So even though the skeletons are mounted at a perfect 90-degree angle at their feet, they all lean forward a little bit. Not a big deal at all for this project, and you can&#8217;t even really tell in this pic of the finished rings:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/foam-board-gears-48.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/foam-board-gears-48.jpg\" alt=\"Attaching the skeletons to the rings\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s all for part two! Whew! Time to build a freaking skull mask around all of this. On to <a href=\"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/skull-mask-dancing-skeletons-part-3\/\">part 3: making the skull mask!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8243; tall) on sketchbook paper, keeping the designs as simple as possible since I&#8217;d be re-painting them by hand at a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[172,19,174,6,206,3,8,4,179,9],"class_list":["post-3646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-craft-foam","tag-foam-board","tag-gears","tag-mardi-gras","tag-mask-making","tag-paper-mache","tag-skeleton","tag-skull","tag-skull-mask","tag-tutorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3646"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6304,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3646\/revisions\/6304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}