Custom Masquerade Mask : 9 Steps (with Pictures)

Everyone likes to feel secret and mysterious like the phantom of the opera sometimes, and nothing makes a person feel cooler than wearing a mask. Okay so this mask is not actually specifically for a masquerade, but I did need a mask for the upcoming renaissance fest 2k17 because they had a mask competition.

Because I did not want to wear a mask all day I ended up making the mask kind of complicated so it would rest in my mask harness nicely. This mask cost about $15 to make and roughly 12 hours of my Saturday.

Be warned I say mask a bunch in this tutorial.

Step 1: Materials

-Black worbla (you only need a small sheet)

-Plaster replica of your face (how to in this tutorial)

-High strength magnets (this is optional)

-Gesso

-Acrylic paint

-Decorative feathers

-String

-Cooking spray

If anyone is wondering why there is a picture of Frank n Furter for this step. In some aspects the Rocky Horror Picture Show helped create this mask because that was all I listened to when making my Ren Fest 2k17 costume.

Step 2: Features of the Mask

If you don't have a bust of your head, learn how to make one here. This is actually the same face I made my prosthetic joker scars off of, and you can still see some of the residue red clay on the plaster because I could not get it off for the life of me.

I drew in pencil the features I wanted to add and sculpted them out of clay. I gave myself a larger nose and a more pronounced brow bone because I wanted to.

Step 3: WORBLA

Before the clay dried and became flaky and cracked. I sprayed the plaster face with cooking spray so the worbla would not fuse to it. I heater my worbla up and gently pulled it over the features.

I drew eyes out onto the mask with a highlighter, and cut them out with an exacto knife.

That last picture with me looking like a total scrub I added in regretfully but it does have a purpose (children screaming in the backround). I had to add some extra worbla on the forehead and on my temples because my mask was not big enough.

I ended up triming the forhead into a sort of heart shape later on.

Step 4: WORBLA DETAILS

I am pretty bad with working with worbla so it was sort of a challenge. I heated up worbla scraps with my heat gun then rolled them out.

- I made a swirl on the nose of the mask

- Some sort of leaf design under one eye

- A really thin eyebrow over the leaf eye

- A thick branchy like eyebrow over the other eye

- A thin tube over the lash line of the branchy side's eye hole

- A button under the thin eyebrow

- An angled tube over the crest of half of the top edge

- A line of squares over the bottom of the masks edge with a tiny rose.

- A tube of worbla over the other bottom edge.

I poked holes into the angled tube on the top of the crest with a tooth pick to add feathers in. This is a great plan if you are not going to mount the mask on your back. I ended up having to scrap this idea because the feathers were angled in a way where they were always touching my neck when the mask was on my back.

Step 5: Magnets!...and Strap Holes

If you're not making a complicated harness you won't need this knowledge. However to get the mask to attach to my back I applied a magnet to bridge of my nose on the inside of my mask with worbla. When I realized my initial feather idea would not work (poking holes in the worbla and simple glueing feathers in) I also fixed a magnet with worbla to the side of my mask to attach the feathers to.

I drilled two holes on either side of the mask to tie my string into later.

Step 6: Painting!

T cover some of the worbla texture, I coated the mask in two layers of Gesso. Then I painted the mask with acrylic paints. I brushed over the highlights of the mask with a thin metallic gold to add some shimmer.

Probably the first time I've never weathered a project before.

Step 7:

Step 8: Feathers!

Because I was being a scrappy fairy for renaissance I needed some wings and I had my heart set on somehow relating my mask to my wings ( I don't know why, this would have been so much less complicated if I didn't), so I ended up taking a tuff of feathers and wrapping the the tip in worbla to keep the feathers together. I used a strip of worbla to stick the worbla to the end of the feather tuff. Then fixed a magnet onto the feather tip so it would stick to my mask and no my harness respectively.