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I was going to wear this to some convention or another, but decided it turned out too well to risk it being damaged by clods in costumes not watching where they're going.
( Image-heavy. )
Jan. 27th, 2008
For everyone who asked: the mask is a thin cast of plaster-impregnated gauze ('Rappit,' basically the stuff they once set broken limbs with); it's shaped with paper pulp ('Celluclay'), then shaped further with gesso. Between most applications, I sanded. The gesso seems like a superfluous step, especially since you'll end up removing most of it when you sand, but it's absolutely essential if you want a smooth surface. The corroded areas are additional applications of pulp on top of the sanded piece. The face of the mask was cast on a rough plasticine sculpture; the inside was taken from my face.
To speed things up, after some air-drying, I would finish drying each application of pulp in the oven, set on the absolute lowest setting ('warm'); the only problem with this is that eventually some of the pulp will start to peel where the plaster is exposed, probably because the plaster expands when heated, but depending on the look you're going for, the cracks can add beneficial detail. I kept the mask very thin and light; cracking may be more of a problem if you build it more heavily.
All the painting is acrylic-based. To paint it, I sponged on a couple of layers of white (I should have undercoated with black for this color scheme, really), then about five layers of iridescent copper/iridescent rich silver/burnt umber in a roughly 10/2/1 proportion, I think. For the sponged paint, I added enough liquid medium to keep the paint from peaking and making the surface too rough. The color for the corrosion is burnt umber again, mixed with matte medium, dry-brushed and smeared. My original plan was to cover these areas with an additional layer of green and green-blue to simulate patina, but in practice it didn't look as good as the brown by itself, so I didn't end up doing that. (Which is a shame, since the patina colors came out just right.)
There's no varnish on the visible part of the piece, because what I had to work with would have made it either too shiny or too dull, but the inside of the mask has a couple of layers, to retard humidity (maybe).
Sorry I don't have any in-progress photos other than just before I put the gesso on. I'm rarely interested in stopping in the middle of what I'm doing to take snapshots. Here's the work area, though.
If you have any other questions, I'll try to answer them.
To speed things up, after some air-drying, I would finish drying each application of pulp in the oven, set on the absolute lowest setting ('warm'); the only problem with this is that eventually some of the pulp will start to peel where the plaster is exposed, probably because the plaster expands when heated, but depending on the look you're going for, the cracks can add beneficial detail. I kept the mask very thin and light; cracking may be more of a problem if you build it more heavily.
All the painting is acrylic-based. To paint it, I sponged on a couple of layers of white (I should have undercoated with black for this color scheme, really), then about five layers of iridescent copper/iridescent rich silver/burnt umber in a roughly 10/2/1 proportion, I think. For the sponged paint, I added enough liquid medium to keep the paint from peaking and making the surface too rough. The color for the corrosion is burnt umber again, mixed with matte medium, dry-brushed and smeared. My original plan was to cover these areas with an additional layer of green and green-blue to simulate patina, but in practice it didn't look as good as the brown by itself, so I didn't end up doing that. (Which is a shame, since the patina colors came out just right.)
There's no varnish on the visible part of the piece, because what I had to work with would have made it either too shiny or too dull, but the inside of the mask has a couple of layers, to retard humidity (maybe).
Sorry I don't have any in-progress photos other than just before I put the gesso on. I'm rarely interested in stopping in the middle of what I'm doing to take snapshots. Here's the work area, though.
If you have any other questions, I'll try to answer them.