Skull Mask

A while ago, I made a cast of my face with the help of my wife and a friend. And here's the project I needed this cast for: my skull mask! It's inspired by Will Morgan's Necromancer mask, and will be part of my costume for this year's Elf Fantasy Fair.

Materials

• Face cast (see this Youtube video for a making-of)
• Fimo Air ultra light clay
• Oil based clay
• Sculpting tools
• Wood glue
• Super glue
• Acrylic gesso
• Acrylic paints
• Matte varnish
• Fabric scraps
• Elastic bands (the type you use in clothing, not rubber bands)

Sculpting
I first covered the face cast with a thin layer of oil based clay. I didn't want the mask to fit too tight, especially because I wanted to cover the inside with some fabric to make it a bit more comfortable to wear. Especially around the eyes I needed enough space for my eyelids. I did mark the exact location of the eyes, to make sure I can see through them properly.

I used Fimo Air ultra light to sculpt the mask. In Will Morgan's tutorial, he first sculpts the mask in clay, then he makes a silicone mold and casts it in urethane resin. This was a bit too advanced for my skill level, so I just use the mask I sculpted. Because the clay is very light, I can easily wear the mask for an entire day without getting cramps in my neck.

There aren't much pictures of the sculpting process, because my hands were full of clay and I didn't want to get clay all over the camera. Not really much to say about it. I'm not exceptionally skilled at sculpting, but it turned out quite ok.
The clay took quite a while to dry. It was still on the face cast, so it could only dry at the front. After five days, it had dried enough to take it off the cast so it could fully dry, and after a week it was done.


Painting
Unfortunately, there were a few cracks in the clay. To fix this, I brushed a few layers of wood glue over the mask. This filled in all the cracks and made it a lot stronger. To prepare it for painting, I first painted it with a mixture of wood glue and acrylic gesso, followed by a coat of pure gesso.

I used two colors for painting. I started with several washes of yellow ochre for the base color. First a very light wash all over the mask, followed by a bit darker around the eyes, teeth and in the deeper ridges. Next, a bit of burnt umber to make the eyes and teeth pop out a bit more.

 

To finish it, I sprayed two coats of matte varnish over the mask.

Finishing
Before glueing fabric on the inside of the mask, I first attached two loops made of elastic band to the sides, so I can loop another piece of elastic band through it to keep the mask of my face. These are glued in place using super glue.

After that, I glued two layers of fabric on the inside. First, a piece of felt. I didn't cut it to size first, I glued the entire piece on and then cut off any excess. Next, a piece of scrap fabric from an old black T-shirt. I did this because the felt gave off a lot of loose fibres, and the T-shirt fabric by itself would still feel quite hard. By combining the two, it's a lot softer but without all the loose fibres.

I have tried the mask on and it fits perfectly. To put it on, I simply loop a piece of elastic band through the two loops, around my head. To conceal the rest of my face, I will wear a black morph mask underneath it.

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Voodoo Hat

For the next Elf Fantasy Fair, my wife and me are making voodoo themed costumes. Here's a cool hat I made!

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Face casting

In a few months, it's time for Elf Fantasy Fair again! The costume I have in mind requires a mask. More specifically, a rigid, skull-shaped mask. To make sure it fits comfortably on my head, I made a cast of my face, wich I will use for sculpting the mask on.
Making a face cast isn't that easy. You can't do it by yourself, so I called in some help. My wife, her mom and stepdad and one of our friends were glad to help me. And we got the entire process on video!

Materials
To make a cast of a body part, you can use either silicone or alginate. Alginate is much cheaper than silicone, but an alginate mold dries out quickly and isn't permanent. Immediately after molding, you have to make a plaster cast, before the mold dries out, and after that, it's thrown away. So, here's the stuff you need:

• Alginate (I used Smooth On Alja Safe Acrobat, a fibre reinforced alginate)
• Plaster bandages
• Vaseline
• Gloves
• Plaster
• Clay

Alginate is a powder derived from seaweed. It's mixed with water to make a slurry that sets into a rubbery consistency. Pure alginate is quite runny and not easy to use for making a cast of a face, the fibre reinforced type I used is designed especially for use on vertical surfaces.

Preparations
The first thing I did was drawing an outline for the alginate on my face using a sharpie, and then I greased up my entire face using vaseline. Alginate releases from skin quite easily, but eyebrows or other facial hair need to be protected or you risk getting the alginate stuck to your face. I have a short beard, wich wasn't really a problem. A swimming cap is very useful to protect your hair, but since I'm bald that wasn't needed!
Before we mixed a batch of alginate, we cut a roll of plaster bandage into 30 cm strips so everything was ready. Keep in mind to wear clothes that you don't mind getting dirty (they will no matter how careful you are)! I used a large trash bag with some holes cut in it to protect my clothes.
And one very important thing: make sure you have a comfortable chair! I sat on a regular chair, and I had to tilt my head back the entire time. Towards the end, my neck started to hurt quite a bit! Some sort of beach chair would have been a lot better.

The procedure
First, your entire face except your nostrils is covered in alginate. The powder is mixed at a one to one ratio by volume with water. As soon as it's mixed, the clock starts ticking! The Alja Safe Acrobat sets very fast, it starts thickening after five minutes. I had mixed way too much, and we had to throw some away. It's better to mix up small batches.
The most challenging part is the nose, because the nostrils have to be kept open so you can breathe. Don't put straws up your nose, that's way too uncomfortable. I used the back of a sharpie to block one nostril at a time while my crew was putting cold goo on my face.
After the alginate has set, it needs to be reinforced. Alginate by itself is very flexible and tears easily, so it needs a support shell. This is easily done using plaster bandages. Simply dip them in water, and build up a plaster shell over the alginate. It takes about fifteen minutes for these to fully harden, after wich the mold can be removed.


Finishing
After the plaster has hardened, it's time to remove the mold from your face. Some tutorials tell you to remove the plaster and alginate separately, other recommend removing them together. I removed them together so the alginate was supported all the time.
We carefully peeled the edges off my face first, while I used my facial muscles to slowly loosen it from the inside. Take your time for this, you don't want to damage the mold! It works best if you tilt your head forward, support the plaster shell with one hand and use the other to get the mold off your face.
After removing the mold, you first have to plug the nostrils with some clay, and then immediately pour plaster in it. An alginate mold isn't permanent and dries out quite fast. I used Ultracal 30, a mixture of plaster and cement that's very strong and durable. This stuff sets slowly, so you don't have to rush things. At first, I was afraid I didn't mix it right because it took so long to set. It took an hour before it started to thicken, and the next morning, it had set.
After the plaster has set, you remove the alginate and plaster bandage; they can be thrown away now. The plaster casting probably needs some cleaning up around the nose. In my case, there were some minor flaws around my mouth. Because we underestimated how fast the alginate set, we had to tear off a piece and start over again, but it's not really a problem.

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Book cover ornaments

I've this isn't the first time you stumbled upon my blog, you know I have made a few customized sketchbooks. I've got this cool technique to make imitation leather, that's both a lot cheaper and easier than using real leather. If you want to learn about it, check out this post (this was my first book project, wich kinda failed, but it explains the technique nicely and I don't want to explain it again every time, so I just refer to this post).

Another thing I add to almost all of my books is some sort of cover ornament. Corners, symbols, all sorts of stuff. Until now, I always made them out of cardboard or MDF, but these thingies take a lot of time to make, much more than you'd think. Since I sell these books in my Etsy store, I should charge an insane price if I want to take into account the amount of time that goes into making one.
To speed up the process a little bit I decided to make molds of my cover ornaments, so I can just cast them in resin. Also, it makes it easier to make multiple copies of one book and keep my store stocked. Until now, after a book was sold, I had to remove it from the store.
So let's get started! I made some ornaments like I did for my other books, and then made silicone molds from them.

Materials

• MDF scraps (I never throw leftover away, they come in handy for stuff like this)
• Coping saw, files, sandpaper
• PVA and cyano acrylate glue
• Acrylic gesso and paint
• Sand (more on that later)
• Foamcore board
• Hot glue gun and sticks
• Release spray
• Molding silicone

Shaping the ornaments
I made four corner ornaments, four clasps for wrapping straps around the back of a book, and an Elder Sign sigil. This involves a lot of cutting, filing and sanding.
MDF doesn't really hold a sharply defined edge very well, especially thin MDF. There's a trick I learned from Bill Doran at Punished Props, though. If you apply cyano acrylate glue to the edge, it becomes very hard and keeps a good edge much better. Use thin glue for this, not the gel type, so it soaks into the fibres. After it has dried, you can sand and file it much better. Oh, and it never hurts to keep a bottle of acetone near when working with super glue. I managed to glue my fingers together on more than one occasion...

I wanted to give the Elder Sign sigil a textured background. I sprinkled coarse sand over it, smoothed it out as much as possible, and then dripped watered down PVA glue over it, soaking the sand with it and glueing it in place.
Before making a mold, I painted all pieces, first in gesso primer and then gray paint, and sanded it between each coat. Painting it makes it easier to spot any flaws.

Molding
When my ornaments were ready, I made molds using silicone. There are two kinds of mold making silicone: tin cured and platinum cured. Tin cured is cheaper, but it shrinks a little bit (not much, and usually not really an issue) and has a shorter life span; after a few years, it will start to deteriorate. Platinum cured silicone hardly shrinks, but it is quite sensitive to cure inhibition. Certain kinds of clay, glue and paint prevent it from properly curing. Most of the time, tin cured will do just fine.
The type of mold I made is the simplest type, a flat-backed box one part box mold. To construct the box, I used foamcore board and a hot glue gun. Foamcore is strong enough to build a molding box, but easy to rip apart after the silicone has cured. To make sure no silicone creeps under the ornaments, I glued them to the bottom of the box using PVA glue. And even though it's not strictly necessary for silicone, I applied some mold release spray.

Next, I mixed up some silicone and poured it into the mold boxes. To prevent bubbles (and if you don't have a vacuum degasser chamber), pour it from high enough, so the stream gets stretched out and most of the bubbles pop. It's best to pour it in the corner of the box and let if flow over the items, instead of pouring directly on them.
The next day, the silicone had cured and I liberated the items from the molds. They turned out quite ok, without any visible flaws. I already made a few casts using polyurethane resin, and it works perfectly!

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Shrunken head, part 2

Over two years ago, I wrote the first part of a tutorial on how to create a shrunken head. I promised a second part, wich would deal with painting and adding hair, but I never got to it. Painting it went ok, but adding hair was harder than I thought, and I more or less forgot the entire project. Until now!
For this years Elf Fantasy Fair, my fiancee and I choose Voodoo as the theme for our costume. And even though shrunken heads strictly speaking don't have anything to do with Voodoo, we thought it would make a cool prop anyway. I had to make a new mold, because I threw the old one away.

Materials

• Oil based clay
• Water based clay
• Vaseline
• Plaster
• Sculpting tools
• Liquid latex
• Acrylic paint
• Wool crepe
• Unbleached string
• Hair spray
• Tissue paper 
• Steam iron
• Heat gun
• Ashes (fireplace or barbecue)

Making a new mold
Like I said, I didn't have the old mold anymore, so I had to make a new one. I made a head using oil based clay, and then a two-part plaster mold. I have described this in more detail in the first part of my tutorial. This time, I added some more wrinkles and skin texture. My sculpting skills have improved a bit the last two years, there's quite a difference between my first mold and this one.

Casting a head
When the mold had dried enough and the clay sculpture was liberated from it, it was time to start casting. I used vaseline on the seam of the mold to make sure it wouldn't leak, and then filled it with liquid latex. I let it sit for about an hour, emptied it again and let it dry.
Two years ago, I used plain latex for the entire head. After the first layer had dried, I repeated the process a few times to build up a nice thick latex skin. This time, however, I used plain latex only for the first layer. After that had dried, I mixed equal parts brown and gray acrylic paint, and then added an equal volume of latex. I also added a bit of water, because the paint thickens the latex mixture quite a bit.
The process is repeated a few times with this mixture. It takes a bit longer to dry, but the result is a latex cast with a base color. When I first tried to paint a latex head two years ago, I found out it takes quite a few layers of paint to get good coverage on latex, this should make things a lot easier. In this case, as you can see, my first layer of latex already was quite thick, and the brown base color didn't really show through. With my first new head, this was the case, though.

After the head had dried, I carefully removed it from the mold. There will probably be a line of flashing where the seam was, this is removed with a sharp knife. I also stuffed the head with tissue paper. The inside remains tacky for a while, even after the latex has dried, and has a tendency to stick to itself.

Painting
On to painting! When painting latex, you can't just use acrylic paint. Even though it seems to work at first, acrylic paint isn't as flexible as latex and will start flaking off very quickly. You can either buy latex based paints (wich are quite expensive) used for making masks, or you can mix acrylic paint and latex. The latex gives the paint flexibility and adhesion.
So it's basically the same mixture I used for casting the head. You should start by mixing the right color first and then adding the latex. Liquid latex is milky white, so the color of the mixture will be a lot lighter. It darkens again when it dries, so don't panic. You'll also need to add water to dilute it.
A very important warning: don't use new or expensive paintbrushes for this! There's a good chance you'll ruin it. I started by painting a dark brown base color (equal parts brown and black) over the entire head, using a sponge. Next, I mixed some brown and ochre and did a light wash, followed by a black was to highlight the wrinkles.

 

Sewing up the eyes and mouth
After painting, I first sewed the eyes and mouth shut. I used unbleached flax string and a thick needle. The rubber is quite hard to punch through, even with a sharp needle. Two crossed stitches across each eye, and a few across the lips, braided together. Also, a few longer pieces of string (also braided together) through the top of the skull, for carrying or hanging the head.

Adding hair
This was the most challenging part, even though it turned out to be easier than I had feared. The best method for adding hair to latex skin is punching. Using a special two-pronged needle, you punch strands of hair through the latex. This gives the best result, but it's very, very time consuming.
An alternative is glueing. Even though this looks a bit less convincing, it is a million times faster than punching. Often, punching is only used for the hairline, and the rest of the hair is  glued on.
For the hair, I recommend using wool crepe. This is used for making single use fake beards, and can easily be glued. Alternatives I had tried were a cheap wig (wich looked ridiculous) and hemp fibres for sealing water pipes (looked even more ridiculous and smelled horrible). Wool crepe can be found at theatrical suppliers. It looks like a dense braid.
The first thing you need to do is unravel the wool. I cut off a 5 centimeter piece and streched it out. Even though it looks like a braid, it's really just a single strand of wool. Since it's all curly, you need to straighten it first. This is very easy, just put it between two paper towels and use a steam iron on it. The 5 cm piece had turned into a 20 cm long strand of hair!

And then it was time to start glueing! I cut off 5 cm long pieces and dipped the ends in latex. I also put a bit of latex on the head itself and used a hot air gun to dry it a bit, so the hair stays in place immediately. For a full head, I started in the neck and worked my way up to the top. In this case, I gave him a mohawk, and eyebrows.

One downside of glueing using liquid latex is that it will probably show at the hairline. I fixed this a bit by rubbing some short wool fibres on it, so they stick to the latex and camouflage it a bit. I plan to try punching hair again in the future, that should look much better.



Finishing
There's one last thing I did to finish it. The latex looked too shiny and plastic-like. I took a bit of ashes from our fireplace and rubbed them over the entire face. This takes away the shine, and gives the skin a very convincing old, dusty, mummified look. The ashes stick to the latex very well and don't rub off.

So there you have it, after two years my tutorial is finally finished. I would like to thank David Gagné from Dark Artifacts, who wrote an excellent tutorial and got me started on this project in the first place.

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Creating eyes in Gimp

A few days ago, I posted an eye I made using Gimp on my Facebook page and promised a tutorial about it. Well, here it is! You may wonder why I use Gimp and not Photoshop or Illustrator? It's very simple: Gimp is free and cross-platform (my PC runs Ubuntu). 

The basics
I started with the basic shape: the background, outline and a pupil. The image is a square image sized 1000 x 1000 pixels, with the grid spacing set to 50 pixels, and will contain a lot of layers. Four layers to get started, named "White background", "Eye background", "Outline" and "Pupil".

The layer "White background" is filled entirely in white, and in the layer "Eye background", a circle filled with solid dark red (RGB color #c80000) measuring 900 x 900 pixels is drawn, using the select and fill tool.
In the layer "Outline", the black outline is drawn. The best way to do this and get a nice, smooth circle is this:

• Select the background circle (in the Layers-tab, right click on the "Eye background" layer and select "Alpha to selection");
• Select the "Outline" layer;
• Select the Paintbrush tool, select the fuzzy round brush with a hardness of 75, and set the size to 5;
• Go to Edit -> Stroke selection -> Stroke with a paint tool and select the Paintbrush tool; make sure "Emulate brush dynamics" is unchecked.

If you use "Stroke line" instead of the Paintbrush tool, the line is much more jagged, even with anti aliasing.

For the pupil, draw an almond shape using the Path tool. In the Paths-tab, right click on the path and select "Path to selection". Using the Fill-tool, fill it with solid black. To soften the edges a bit, go to Filters -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur and set the blur radius to 5 pixels.

 

The iris
Now it's time to turn a boring, red circle into a detailed iris. Start by creating a new layer named "Clouds", and put it between the "Eye background" and "Pupil" layers. Fill the entire layer using the same red color that was used for the background, and open the "Difference clouds" filter (Filters -> Render -> Clouds -> Difference clouds). Check the "Turbulent" checkbox, and set the horizontal and vertical size to 8 pixels.

Next, go to Filters -> Distorts -> Polar coordinates. Set "Circle depth" to 100%, uncheck "Map backwards" and check the two other options. This wraps the pattern into a circle. There will be a seam where it wraps around, use the Clone tool to clean this up. And finally, select the background circle again, invert the selection and trim the "Clouds" layer.

Set the layer mode to "Subtract", and the opacity to 80%. It will probably look too dark, so go to "Colors -> Brightness & Contrast" to adjust it. I lowered the brightness by 100 and increased the contrast by 20 in this case, but feel free to experiment.

I wanted to create a "ring of fire" effect in the iris. For this, I made a new layer named "Ring temp", on top of the "Clouds" layer. Using the paintbrush tool, I drew a black vertical line. I then applied the "Wind" filter. Go to Filters -> Distorts -> Wind, set the style to "Wind", direction to "Left" and edge affected to "Leading". Threshold was set to 20 and Strength to 50. After that, apply the same filter again, but this time, set direction to "Right".

To turn this strip into a ring, first rotate the layer 90° clockwise (Layer -> Transform -> Rotate 90° clockwise) and then apply the Polar Coordinates filter, like was done with the "Clouds" layer. Next, select the ring by right clicking on the layer and selecting "Alpha to selection".

Select the Scale tool, and set it to "Scale selection". I made the selection about twice as big. Delete the "Ring temp" layer, and make a new layer "Ring", below the "Clouds" layer. Next, I enlarged the selection by 5 pixels (Select -> Grow) and filled it using orange (RGB color #ff9200).

Finishing the pupil
At the moment, the pupil is just a black almond shape. First, I'm gonna give it a dark red outline. I made a new layer named "Pupil shadow", right below the "Pupil" layer. I selected the pupil (right click layer -> Alpha to selection), expanded it by 10 pixels and filled it with dark red (RGB color #960000). I applied Gaussian blur (Filters -> Blur -> Gaussian blur) with a radius of 10 pixels, and set the opacity to 70%.

Next, I made a glow effect around the pupil. Again, a new layer, named "Pupil glow", right on top of the background. I selected the pupil, expanded it by 50 pixels and filled it using a lighter shade of orange (RGB color #ff3100). I then applied Gaussian blur with a radius of 20 pixels and set the layer mode to "Dodge".

Making it 3D
The following steps turn the eye from a flat image into a spherical, 3D-image. The first step: an inner shadow. Very easy. Create a new layer named "Inner Shadow", below the "Outline" layer. Select the eye background, and fill the "Inner Shadow" layer using dark red (RGB color #960000). Next, shrink the selection by 50 pixels, feather it by the same amount (Select -> Feather) and delete the selection. Set the layer mode to "Opacity" and you get a nice dark red inner shadow.

The next step is adding an inner glow to the top half of the eye. Create a new layer named "Inner Glow" right below the "Inner Shadow" layer, and select the eye background. Now select the ellipse select tool, and set the mode to "Intersect with current selection". Draw an elliptical selection from the top left corner to one grid division below the center of the eye.

Set the foreground color to pure white and select the Gradient tool. Set the gradient type to "FG to transparent" and the shape to "Radial". Reverse the gradient, so it goes from transparent to white, and draw the gradient from the top of the pupil, straight down to two grid divisions below the selection.
Set the opacity to 50%, the layer mode to "Grain merge" and apply Gaussian blur with a radius of 10 pixels to soften the edges, and you've got yourself an inner glow!

And finally, there's one finishing touch. Make a new layer named "Specks", below the "Outline" layer. Using the Ellipse Select tool, draw a small circle, and with the Gradient tool, using the same settings we used for the inner glow, draw a gradient from the top right to the bottom left. I made two specks of reflected light like this. The layer opacity is set to 70%, and Gaussian blur with a radius of 5 pixels is applied.

Finished!
Here's the eye I made, printed and glued to a 35 mm glass dome. If you want to print this, you'll probably have to adjust the brightness and contrast so the colors turn out right when printed. Also, use good quality photo paper, it makes all the difference in the world.

The method I explained here leaves lots and lots of room for experimenting. You can try different colors, layer effects, distortions, textures, ...

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