To start I used a swimming
hat along with Vaseline to cover any hair on the as any exposed hair would
stick to plaster and be very difficult to get off. I then with a bowl of warm
water dipped the plaster bandage into it being careful to rub any excess off. I
applied this to the face in an even coating and left to harden on the face for approximately
20 minutes. I removed the plaster bandage mask and left it to dry in a warm
area for 24hours.
Once the mask was fully
dry (if it is still damp to the touch leave to dry longer) I cut-out the
general shape of where the eyes and mouth would be. As I used plastic piping
connectors for the vent at either side, using glue and more plaster bandage to
set into place. I then painted round the exposed areas of the mask namely the
eyes, vents and I used a black piece of cloth to cover the mouth area.
There were many different sackcloth materials which
I looked at to cover the mask but I found that many sackcloth were woven sparsely,
typically these were sackcloth that would be used for covering bushes from harsh
weather in winter. I needed a very tight weave so that the underline shell of
the mask could not be seen. I found rice sackcloth bags to be the best for
this, I used sack string to sew in the stitches across parts of the face and
this also helped to conceal the parts that had to be sewn together.
I then built up the area
of the mask such as bumps and irregularities with more plaster bandage and
again left to dry for 24hours. Finally sticking down the sackcloth material to
the cased plaster, to blend the mask and make it look old and worn I used a
combination of acrylic paints diluted in tea and tea bags to stain the
sackcloth this took approximately three days to dry as the sackcloth had a waxy
coating on it and the stand was slow to take to it. The hole project cost in
the region $20 and took about a week to make, allowing for drying time.
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