This is a new technique for making custom fitting masks out of hot melt glue and yarn. The base is a head form the same size as my head, to make sure my head later fits into the mask. (The base itself will be another instructable.) Over the basic head form I sculpted clay to make the form of the mask.

You can get a layer of hot melt glue and yarn to cover the clay, but it doesn't stick well to the clay. When finished, it is easy to remove because of that. The inside of the mask just had a little clay dust stuck to it, which washed off easily with water.

This kind of mask material is tough, leathery, and more damage resistant than paper mache. It is very light-weight and comfortable. To get the mask off the clay mold and over my own head, I made a couple of cuts behind the ears, which allow the mask to flex open. It then just springs closes over my head and stays in place pretty well. This material should have very good longevity, which is good, because laying on the yarn is pretty time consuming.

Step 1: Sculpting the Clay

This is the head mold. It was made by covering my head with nylon panty hose, like a bank robber, and covering it with two layers of metallic tape, like sticky aluminum foil (available in auto part stores). I was then cut out of the tape, the panty hose layer was removed, and the shell coated inside with a layer of plaster of Paris. When that was strong, I filled the rest of the cavity with grout and Styrofoam chunks, to cut down on weight and mounted it on a PVC pipe neck and base. The end result is a solid shape that resists pressure while sculpting the clay over it.

After sculpting the clay, you can see some of the first yarn going on.

Step 2: Yarn Application

The yarn is glued down in swirling patterns over the surface of the clay. After the yarn first goes down, the surface is not very smooth. I go over it with a special hot smoothing tool I made out of a soldering iron. The copper tip was hammered flat, something like a hot spatula. At full voltage, the soldering iron gets too hot and burns the glue, so I use a voltage regulator to lower the voltage to about 60 volts. That way, it melts and smooths, but does not burn the glue.

The yarn colors change, darkening when saturated with glue. Usually, there is enough glue used in sticking down the yarn to also saturate the yarn in the flattening procedure. You can always add more glue if the yarn is too dry.

When finished, the surface is shinier than the original yarn surface, flatter, and easier to keep clean. For those who object to the shiny surface, one could probably just spray the finished mask with matte spray varnish, available at art stores.

Step 3: Shots of the Finished Mask

These are just some shots of the finished mask from various angles.

In the process of removing it from the clay inside, I made a couple of cuts up the neck behind the ears. The complicated forms are not much of a problem to remove, because the clay can be flexed and broken off of the head mold while still inside the mask shell. The head mold itself has no complicated details that the yarn layer would lock onto. Therefore, even if the yarn layer sticks to protruding clay forms, such as the horn-like shapes over the eyes, the clay breaks off and can be removed from the inside of the shell after everything comes off the simpler head mold shape.

You can always use more cuts to remove things, if need be, and patch with more glue later.