Masquerade

Last week, a good friend of ours turned 30 (wench!). She decided that she wanted to celebrate with a masquerade party, so everyone had to show up in masks. Of course, I couldn't just buy one. I had to make it.

I started out with a wig head and celluclay, roughing out the shape of the features. I had it in mind to do a plague mask, but I thought better of it because I wanted to be able to have cocktails with everyone that night. Plague masks just don't allow for any dignified way of drinking martinis. I have priorities, you know.

When it dried enough, I hollowed out the nose to reduce the weight drag. After that, I covered it with a layer of paperclay. It's been really cold and rainy here, so both layers were refusing to dry. I set the mask in front of the fireplace for a few hours to get it to dry properly, rotating it a few times to get it somewhat even. Sorry, I was too rushed to take a pic of the paperclay result!

Since I have boatloads of spraypaint lying around the house, I decided to use some for the mask. I took a can of black Rust-oleum hammered metal spray paint and laid down my base. After that dried for a day, I got a can of copper hammered metal spray paint and shot it through a stencil I had lying around. The effect wasn't as clean as it could have been, bit it still turned out o.k. After that dried, I added a couple of more details with the stencil and pewter hammered metal paint. I tried it on a few times, and took a dremel sander attatchment to grind down the sharp bits inside.

I added a chain and clasps I bought from Michael's, and ta-da! Masque extraordinnaire!

I showed these pics to friends the other day. It was all going so well until someone said, "Oh! You went as a dicknose!"

*sigh*