My sister wanted to be Lan Fan and needed the mask for her. So I went and looked up photos and ideas others had on making it and found it to be pretty simple and easy to do. Sorry for the lack of pre-paint pictures. I got so into my project that I forgot to take photos. But hopefully with instructions and the photos you can see what I did to make the mask.

How to Make Lan Fan's Mask from Full Metal Alchemist.

Supplies:

Paper Mache White Mask from any Halloween or craft store. (I liked this one better than the plastic ones.)

Black Paint

White Paint

Red Paint

Black marker or Fine Sharpie

Pencil

X-acto blade or cutting device

Step 1: Cutting and Layout

So I didn't take a photo of when I cut the mask and I was looking at the photo and noticed that I really did not need to cut the eyes any wider as the black paint will give you the needed look. All you need to cut is the mouth opening. Start a by making a straight line above the lips and then go down an angle around the mouth. Use the bottom lip line as your guide for the bottom line and cut down about 1/2 inch at a angle. I made the top slightly larger then the bottom so you can get the angle on the sides. Paper Mache mask are durable and handle the cutting without losing its shape. Sand the inside if needed.

Layout. So I started in the lip area with a 1/2 inch wide line between the nose and lip that reached from side to side. Please note that around the bottom of the nose you will have a slight curve to accommodate the nose detail.

Draw out the eyes. They will be about 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch wide. The top will stay about the same width but at the edges will widen out to a point. The bottom will start skinny and again wide out to a point on the side. Make sure the points are about even and curve upward.

Leave about a 1/8" space of white to start drawing the bottom line for the eyebrows. They will start at a point and widen out to 1/2 inch all the way to the side. They will curve around the eyes and the straight back along the sides. This will give you the guide for the red section that will be 1/8 inch from the bottom of the eye and curve up and form a straight line 1/8 inch from the black. The bottom line of the red section will go again from the point under the eye and almost go straight across the cheek with a slight curve as you draw on the mask. The distance from the red and the black on the bottom should be an even amount of white.

The yin symbol on top is in the middle of the forehead with a small circle in the middle. The tip of the symbol points slightly to the right.

Step 2: Painting and Detail

As you can see, once you get it all drawn out its a very easy paint job. Red is only needed in the middle section and the rest is black. Only two colors are really needed. The white paint is used to fix any mistakes you may make with the other colors.

Details is what made this mask for me. As you see in the original photo, she has lines that are on the underside of the red and along the nose. For this you can free hand or use a pencil for a guide. I drew a black line with a fine tip marker/sharpie about 1/8 inch from the red on the mask. The line continued up to the eye and then around down the nose on the outside. A secondary line was made from the eyes down on top of the nose and around to the front on top. This gives you that 2 line look from the first photo and the added detail.

I hope this has helpful. I was able to create the whole mask in an hour and had lots of fun.