Demon Monster Mask

This mask is my creation for my strolling character at a Halloween haunt. It is based on my own design, and I wear a black robe with chains and have Hans (my zombie head on a stick) with me. It's a fun costume, and can be pretty freaky in the dark.

The mask was sculpted with papier mache. I would have preferred to make a latex mask for much more detail, but I didn't have the cash at the time. He has a separate jaw that is attached with elastic that allows me to move his mouth when I move mine. Here is an earlier picture while I was putting the first few coats of paint on him:

His horns are thin sheets of craft foam rolled into shape and painted, and the teeth and small spikes on his head are sculpted with Sculpey. I love translucent Sculpey for sculpting teeth and claws, you can get a much more natural look than with white. I also like adding a few layers of gloss to the teeth and mouth whenever I make a creature like this because Sculpey can be pretty brittle, and it gives the mouth a good slobbery look!

This mask actually has a full head of hair (you can see some I glued on in front of his ears (and some poking out of his mouth in this shot..whoops..). I attached a full wig to the back of his head, but it didn't give me the coverage I wanted in my costume (my ears and neck were too visible for my liking) so I attached a piece of black cloth as a hood last minute.

Here you can see what his mouth looks like open (I swear his hair isn't supposed to be in his mouth!), when my face is painted black underneath it looks pretty great! I've worn this mask a few weekends now and he's been getting some wear and tear (can see some spots of paint rubbing off on the ears, and I've had to fix his jaw once so far) but it's surprisingly comfortable.

Head On A Stick

This is my head on a stick, affectionately known as 'Hans'. He is a prop stave I use as a strolling character (more on that character in an upcoming post) at a Halloween Haunt.

Hans was created using a pre-made plastic skull that I attached to a wooden stave. He was simply a bare skull; I created this delightfully juicy prop by layering tissue and liquid latex over him, and using a hard brush to 'sculpt' finer details, like wrinkles, etc. into his skin before it dried. I sculpted a slightly oblong ball with Sculpey for his eye, and used more tissue/latex to create the look of eyelids. I glued his jaw at an unnatural angle so the whole piece would be that much more disturbing.

I'm sure you can see Hans has a lovely head of..er..hair. This is by far the easiest, yet most unsettling thing I can suggest to add to a prop like this, for some reason putting hair on it just adds a creepiness factor you can't get otherwise. I used strands of wig hair and attached them with gloss varnish for a globby/rotten look.

The ear was from this old toy CSI kit I got a bajillion years ago, to build up clay faces for forensics. I stuck it on there because...well why not. I also thought Hans' gaping eye-hole was boring, so I rolled up some dried latex into little maggot-shaped blobs and stuck them in there with some more varnish. After a simple paint job (dollar store acrylics, mostly brown and black), I glossed Hans up wherever I thought he needed more rotten juicyness, and voila! Threw some twine and fake blood (also why not) on this bad boy and he was ready for haunting! Despite being mostly plastic, he's pretty durable, I've dropped him multiple times and he hasn't broken, though I'm not sure anyone would notice if he did!