CLAY – MickRed

Last year my wife and I made this Princess Mononoke Costume for our daughter barely in time for Halloween. I just recently noticed I posted to social media but never posted here.

The mask was made with paper mache and paper clay, coated with plasti dip and then painted by MrsRedBeard. The ears, knife and spear were made with foam matting, coated with plasti dip then painted. The fur was a bath mat that MrsRedBeard found, on Amazon I think, which was way cheaper than buying it from a fabric store. The knife handle was made from a ping pong paddle and the spear handle was made from a paint roller handle.

The dress was found at a discount clothing store for very cheap. MrsRedbeard modified the dress, sculpted the necklace with polymer clay and made the fur into something wearable.

The Mask

The Weapons

The finished costume

Favorite moment of the Donnie Darko mask

I’ve been wanting to make a Donnie Darko Frank the Bunny mask for some time now and finally got around to doing before this last Halloween. Disclaimer I’m no sculptor and have no experience with this. Definitely not perfect and I’m going to retry for something better later but I’ll share anyways.

This was a ton of fun to do but I think I might take some art classes at the AR Innovation Hub, a local maker space, soon.

Materials

I used a combination of paper mache and paper mache clay to make this mask. Paper mache clay is awesome!! I started with a styrofoam form and a blank plastic mask (that was too small).

Cara Brookins has a write up on paper mache clay. Cara is an author and super mom who I hope to interview after reading a few more of her books. I had the pleasure of meeting Cara a few years ago at River City Comic Con.

Errors

As you browse through the progress you’ll notice I started off with an uneven form and it never got better. I thought I’d fill in the lower jaw area to make the mask fill the outline of the printed mask but then removed it with haste. I also found out late that the paper mache clay needs to be kneaded and worked for a while before it becomes pliable. The mask ended up being a bit small but weighed a ton like hurt your neck ton.

I learned a lot from this project. I’m open to any tips you might have for the paper mache clay and sculpting in general.