The Last of Us Clicker Mask

This is my third Clicker mask from The Last of Us franchise

Supplies

Plastic face mask from Michaels or Hobby Lobby

Painter's Tape

A balloon

Flexible measuring tape or a string

Clay foam or cosplay foam from Michaels/Hobby Lobby

1 string LED lights of your color choice ($7 on amazon)

Paint brushes

Clear gesso

Flourescent orange paint

Neon orange yellow paint

Red paint

Purple paint

Black paint

Citadel Color Technical Blood for the Blood God or

Citadel Color Blood Angel's Red or

Citadel Color Flesh Tearers Red

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/detail?N=1088720681+3891072176

Resin teeth ($7 on amazon)

Transparent fishing line or bead cord

E6000 glue

Modpodge or regular glue

Toilet paper

Modpodge super hi-shine Clear acrylic sealer

Clothespins

2 leather straps/cords

Velcro strips or command strips

Step 1: Starting the Mask

Materials: tape measure, string, plastic face mask, Painter's tape, balloon

1. Take your tape measure or string and wrap it around your head. Note the measurement or mark your string. You want to blow up your balloon so that the thickest part of it matches the thickest part of your head. I would add an inch or two as the mask will shrink a little during the process.

2. Tape the balloon to the mask.

3. Start layering tape on the mask and balloon. You can decide how far down the balloon you want to go depending on how big you want the mask to be. I usually go about a quarter of the way down the balloon with my tape.

4. Lots and lots of taping. When you think you've finished, add another layer just in case. This is the foundation of your mask.

5. To make the cheeks, stick one end of the tape on the chin of the mask and pull it diagonally towards you cheek. Stick the other end to your cheek. Add another strip of tape to the skin below the first and attach it to the chin. Repeat until the cheeks are covered. Once a thick layer of tape is formed, I was able to painlessly peel the tape off my cheeks. Make sure to use Painter's tape!

6. Pop the balloon and remove it from the mask. Add tape to the inside of the mask to cover the sticky parts.

Step 2: Building Up the Foam Clay

Materials: cosplay foam/air foam, paintbrush, LED string

1. I looked up lots of reference pics of mushrooms before deciding to mimic oyster mushrooms. I would recommend finding good reference pics to model your fungus after.

2. Pic a focal point to start attaching your clay. Clickers look like the fungus is erupting from a fissure or point on the face. I usually choose the nose. I started by draping thinly rolled ropes of clay over the nose and moving them out to the cheeks. These are the stems of your fungus.

3. Build the clay stems up between the eyes. Start adding small mushroom caps of your desired shape. Step 3 discusses one way to make the mushrooms.

4. Don't add any stems over the mouth! Clickers' mouths are fully exposed.

5. Start building up your fungus around the eyes (or cover one if you want). Make the mushroom shapes more pronounced and layered, like a colony.

6. This is a good point to begin weaving in your LED wire with the clay, starting with the end farthest away from the battery pack.

7. The stiffness of the wire can be used in several ways: you can "glue" it to the mask with clay, so that the tiny light is flush against the mask. Or you can form shapes with the wire and build the clay around it. This allows the wire to act as infrastructure to larger or heavier fungus shapes. I did a combination of both. Having the LEDs flush against the mask diffuses the light, building the LEDs into a shape gives it a more focused light.

Step 3: Making the Mushrooms

Materials: foam clay, skinny paintbrush handle

1.I made my mushroom shapes by pinching off a small blob of clay and flattening it between my fingers. As you flatten, turn the clay in a circle and soften the edges with your fingertips. This should form your clay into a vaguely circular flat pancake. Put aside for a moment. (Pic 1)

2. Take a slightly larger chunk of clay and roll it between your hands, so that it forms a skinny-ish cylinder or rope. This is your stem. (Pic 2)

3. Take the end of your thin paintbrush handle, and stick it in the the top of the stem. I like to do this on the thicker end of the stem. This creates a bowl shape in your stem. Gently remove the paintbrush handle. (Pic 3 and 4). If you're doing bigger mushrooms, you can use the end if your pinky finger to make the bowl.

4. Using two fingers, begin pinching the sides of the bowl while working clockwise around it. (Pic 5)

5. This part is hard to explain, the pics will better show the process. At this point, your stem should be cylindrical on one end and deeply flared on the other end. Take your flat circular pancake and place it on top of the flared end (pic 6).

6. Gently merge the edges of the flared end and pancake together. It will be pretty thin at this point. Take the end of a skinny paintbrush and push into the clay, forming a groove from the stem to the flared top (pic 7). You can choose to do a shallow groove or a deeper one, make a long or short groove, or not do grooves at all.

7. Continue making grooves all around the stem and top.

Step 4: Building the Mouth and Gums

Materials: foam clay, paintbrush

1. I like to make the gums for the upper front two teeth first. These gums should not be flush next to each other, but separate as though a split went between them. Make a tube shape with your clay. Insert a front tooth into the bottom of the clay tube. Pushing the tooth into the clay creates a kind of humped ridge at the base of the tooth (pic 2). This adds to the realism of the gums. Remove the tooth.

2. For the remaining upper gums, mold a rectangle with your clay. Insert it next to the upper tooth gum you already completed. Take the end of a skinny paint brush and roll it between where the teeth will go (pic 3). This causes the middle (where the tooth goes) to bulge up and the sides to divot down. Do this on either side of where the teeth will go.

3. Insert tooth into the middle of the hump to make an indentation, then remove tooth.

4. The bottom gums will be made the same way as the upper gums, you just need a longer and more slender rectangle to start with.

5. I forgot this step- when you look at a mouth, the bottom teeth curve back deep into the mouth. The limitations of the plastic mouth won't let you make a "deep" mouth, but you can give it the illusion of depth. When you make your tooth indent for the front bottom teeth, make them towards the front of the clay rectangle. When you insert the back teeth, do them towards the back side of the clay rectangle. It won't be perfect, but it will make the front teeth pop more.

Step 5: Priming

Materials: transparent gesso

note: Do not paint before priming!

1. Paint the whole thing with primer. I chose transparent gesso because it gives the paint something to grab onto. Wait 24 hr and repeat. I only did 2 layers.

There are many types of primer you can choose for this step. I've also successfully used plastidip. It adds protection and works as a primer. You have to do 4-5 layers of it.

Step 6: Painting the Face

Materials: orange flourescent paint, Neon orange yellow paint, vintage white paint, light buttermilk paint, black paint

1. These steps are subjective and up to you! I started by dry brushing a section of the mask with black paint. (I like to paint in sections to see what I like/dislike). Note: DO NOT paint the top part of the mushroom caps black! Let that dry. I then painted a layer of vintage white. The black should show through somewhat to provide texture and contrast.

2. I ended up dry brushing a layer of light buttermilk on the stems of the mushrooms. This paint has a light yellow tinge, you could also just mix yellow and white paint to get the same effect. Pic 2 shows the yellow paint.

3. I still wasn't satisfied with the color, so I added back some black to bring out the grooves on the mushrooms. I did this by loading my paintbrush with black paint then wiping most of it off. Dry brush the grooves with black so that it doesn't go on solid black, but just a hint (pic 6).

4. I got inspiration for the mushroom caps by looking up pics of chicken of the woods mushrooms. To paint the mushroom caps, I did a base coat of neon orange yellow. Let that dry. In the middle of the cap, add a small dollop of orange flourescent and blend it into the base coat. Once that dries, mix a small bit of red paint with the orange flourescent. Do an even smaller dollop of that in the middle of the cap and blend outwards.

5. If you want, you can add black to the center of the mask and at the base of the stems, as though the mushrooms are growing out of a fissure (pic 7). I found this really made the front mushrooms pop

Step 7: Painting the Gums

Materials: black paint, purple paint

1. I first painted my gums with pink and red paint (pic 1), but that looked all wrong, the gums were too healthy looking.

2. I ended up mixing a lot of purple paint with black paint. I did a base coat of that to the entire gums. I then added a bit of black to my purple mixture to make a darker black purple. Take this color and paint it in the gum grooves between the teeth. This makes the divots look more contrasted to the bulge of the gum. Gives it more of a protruding, dehydrated look.

3. Honestly, if you don't like the look of your gums, you can cover it with blood and saliva.

Step 8: Gluing in the Teeth

Materials: E6000 cement glue, resin teeth

1. Glue the teeth into the indentations you already made before priming and painting.

2. Let these dry for 24 hr! I've never had problems with E6000 sticking unless I disturbed it before 24hr was up.

Step 9: Adding Blood and Saliva

Materials: Translucent bead cord, E6000 cement glue, blood paint of choice

1. Cut a small piece of translucent bead cord. It should fit between the upper and lower teeth. Put a dollop of glue where you want the saliva to start. Insert the cord into the dollop. Let that solidify for a few minutes.

2. Slowly drip a small amount of E6000 down the cord. It's pretty viscous, it should flow slowly. This is your saliva, add as much or little as you want. I like to drip it down the lips and from the corners of the mouth for a wet look.

3. I have had way more luck with the Citadel Colors than any of red paint, would highly recommend buying some. I used Blood for the Blood God, Blood Angels Red, and Flesh Tearers Red.

4. Drip the paint wherever you want blood. You can also paint the saliva to look like bigger drops of blood or like blood is mixed in (pic 4).

Step 10: Making the Cheeks

Materials: modpodge, toilet paper

1. I did this a little different than my previous mask. Instead of painting the cheeks with glue and sticking on the toilet paper, I first submerged a piece of toilet paper completely in modpodge. I stuck the submerged piece to the cheeks. It won't be a flat piece, it'll be more of a glob that you have to spread around. This made a really interesting skin texture.

2. I decided to only do one layer, I really liked how it turned out! You can do however many layers you want to get the right look.

3. I struggled with painting the cheeks. I went through several rounds of different colors, but none of them were right. I ended up mixing black and purple again and dry brushing that on the cheeks. Once dried, I took vintage white and with a light touch, dry brushed the cheeks to bring out the texture.

Step 11: Glossing

Materials: modpodge super hi shine clear acrylic sealer

1. Read the directions on the can.

Note: I did not gloss the cheeks or teeth! I wanted the cheeks to be matte.

2. I ended up doing 2 layers because I wanted maximum shine. Allow the gloss to fully dry between reapplying.

Step 12: Adding Straps

Materials: velcro strips or command strips, E6000 cement glue, leather straps, clothes pins

1. Leather has two sides, a smooth side and a rough side (pic 1). Glue a command strip on the end of the first leather strap on the smooth side.

2.Glue the second command strip on the rough side of the second strip at the end. Use clothespin to keep the command strip flush to the leather while it dries.

3. You want the smooth sides to be showing when you put on your mask.

4. To measure out how long your leather strips should be, start by sticking them together. Make sure the leather with the connected command strips sit at the middle back of your head.

5. Pull the leather strips taut around your head. The command strips should easily stick and not pull apart. You want the untouched end of the leather to sit around the corner of your eyes. Cut off the excess leather.

6. Glue the untouched end of the leather straps to the inside of the mask at the corner of the eyes. Use clothespins if possible to add pressure.

Step 13: The Battery Pack

Materials: E6000 cement glue, one clothespin

1. Glue the clothespin to the battery pack.

2. Clip the clothespin to the inside of your shirt so the battery pack is hidden