{"id":37,"date":"2015-06-18T15:27:53","date_gmt":"2015-06-18T15:27:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/?p=37"},"modified":"2020-10-05T18:18:12","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T18:18:12","slug":"my-first-big-skull-mask-mardi-gras-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manningkrull.com\/manningmakesstuff\/my-first-big-skull-mask-mardi-gras-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"My first big paper mach\u00e9 skull mask, Mardi Gras 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"My<\/a><\/p>\n

This was my first big paper mach\u00e9 project!<\/p>\n

I started off by buying some chicken wire<\/strong> and trying to shape it into the skull shape I pictured in my head. It didn’t work out at all; I had no idea what I was doing and I just couldn’t get the chicken wire to do what I wanted. So I gave up on the chicken wire for this mask. (I used chicken wire again, with much better results, the next year!<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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So, after my chicken wire failure, I had to figure out a different way to make my base. I decided to try a combination of bowls, baskets, styrofoam cups<\/strong>, etc, all taped together into a big skull shape (more details on that below). I went to the dollar store and tried out a bunch of objects together and found a good combination. I took everything home, taped it all together, and… the skull was WAY too big! Ha! I put that skull base aside and used it a couple years later as part of my giant spider decoration for Halloween. Here’s a pic of that giant skull, covered in masking tape but not yet paper mach\u00e9’d:<\/p>\n

\"Giant<\/a><\/p>\n

(I ended up using this giant skull in later years as the head of my giant spider<\/a> for Halloween 2013 and as the centerpiece in a voodoo altar<\/a> for Halloween 2015.)<\/p>\n

Okay, third time’s the charm! I went back to the dollar store and simply bought smaller versions of all those cups, bowls, etc. I taped them all together and this time the skull was just the right size.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately I started this site a few years after I made this mask, so I didn’t take pictures of all the steps. However, I’ve been asked a lot about how I made the base for the skull, so I whipped up these very rough sketches of the basic steps.<\/p>\n

\"Manking<\/p>\n

The first three views are from the side…<\/p>\n

1. First, I started with a simple skull profile shape, cut out from foam board, with the bottom part measured to fit nicely in one of the plastic baskets.<\/p>\n

2. Then I attached the two plastic baskets, one for the jaw and one for the back of the head. I attached these with tons and tons of packing tape. This whole thing was a big ugly mess of tape by the time I was done with it; that’s fine! The paper mach\u00e9 covers everything.<\/p>\n

3. Then I cut out a couple dozen long strips of poster board, about 1.5″ wide by 20″-30″ long. I curved these around the mask from the front, and taped them in place toward the back. These will help round out the shape of the face. You might even want to do two layers of these, to help the base be a little stronger.<\/p>\n

Backing up a step, you can see where I added a little triangle foam board shape at the bottom left to give the jaw some more dept; I put a dotted line there to show where it is. I think I made this out of foam board and then packed some wadded up newspaper or paper towels around, all taped in place, and then I did the poster board strips over it.<\/p>\n

The back of the head was flat, since it’s the bottom of a basket. I put a dotted line there to show where it was. So I rounded that out with more poster board strips, gently curved over and taped in place.<\/p>\n

4. Now we’re looking at the front. When all the poster board strips were done, I covered the ENTIRE base with masking tape, to smooth it out and make everything a little stronger (this whole project probably used three or four rolls of masking tape!). Then I added five shapes; these were made of wadded up paper towels, taped on with masking tape. Two shapes for the eyebrow ridges, two big shapes for the cheeks, and one for the bridge of the nose.<\/p>\n

When those shapes are done, I covered them with masking tape as well. The masking tape is important because it won’t stick to the paper mach\u00e9 very well, and you’ll hopefully be able to remove all of it from the inside when you’re done.<\/p>\n

With the base done, I applied about eight layers of paper mach\u00e9. See my article about my paper mach\u00e9 method here.<\/a> The short version is: I use Roman PRO-543 universal wallpaper adhesive<\/a> (paid link) and alternating layers of newspaper and brown wrapping paper.<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\"\"<\/div>\n

5. Profile again. When the paper mach\u00e9 was dry, I opened the bottom of the base and cut out all of the base materials; the baskets, the foam board, and even all the masking tape (be careful not to tear the paper mach\u00e9!). This is a lot of work! When that was done, I trimmed away the bottom part of the jaw; the part I shaded in my pic above is the part I cut away.<\/p>\n

I went through a ton of masking tape and packing tape for all of this. The more tape you use, the smoother the shape will be, the stronger it will be, and the more easily you’ll be able to pull everything out when you’re done.<\/p>\n

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