Halloween Wall Plaque/ Pillar Decoration

Yes Im already working on this coming years Haunted House, one idea is to have "brick pillars" flanking the drawbridge but like everything else they need to be easily disassembled and stored so I thought about foambaord as the backing. Well foambaord isn't going to work at least with this process because it warps and twists in multipul directions so this piece will be remounted on a plywood backing and just hung somewhere. Some of you may have seen my winged skull "ible" this is pretty much the same proceedure

Step 1: The Mold

I'm using a plastic halloween decoration with a skull imprint as the mold, layering ripped pieces of toilet or nose tissue with acrylic paint as a wetting/bonding agent forms a hard plastic like form. Kind of like fiberglass and resin the tissue adds strenght to the dried paint

Step 2: The Plaque

I used half a sheet of foambaord from the Dollar Store, not the best choice but what the heck, I laid tissue on the board and dabbed a watered down acrylic craft paint on the tissue to attach it to the substrate, about 3layers gives a nice stone texture. Let it dry and then position your dried skull form where you want it, attach it using more tissue and paint. cut brick sized pieces of tissues and layer 4 in place leaving "grout lines" between them, again using the paint to stick them in place

Step 3: Eyes

I think I read about hotglue eyeballs somewhere on instructables, if that was you THANK YOU, its a great idea! I filled the "eye sockets" about half way with hot glue and made a pair of hotglue "buttons" on a seperate surface. Once dry I painted the "buttons" and placed them in the eye sockets and covered with more hotglue. In retrospect I wouldn't have filled the sockets so far the first time

Step 4: Paint and Finish

I covered my "grout lines" with tape and then applied a coat of gray paint, brush mixed on the surface to give the varied look, the green and brown "moss" was applied using an almost dry stiff brush, the skull is covered with a small amount of yellow ochre mixed into a lot of clear medium. All thats left is to removeit from the scrap board and attach it to a different backing, frame and hang