Making a mask

Lesson #1

Welcome everybody!!  Lets not waste any time. Time to make a mask...

In this lesson we will cover the following topics:

Designing a character

Before you can begin making a mask you must first have a good idea of what you want to make.  I know that sounds obvious but it is not uncommon for a person to want to make a mask but not have a clear idea as to what kind of mask.  If you are making a mask for someone else you will usually be given some guidelines to follow for the design.  You may be provided with drawings or photographs but when you are sculpting a mask for yourself then it is up to you to know what you want.  To start a sculpture without having a clear idea of what the final outcome should look like is to invite disappointment.

The mask that I am sculpting for this class was inspired by my children one day when they were playing on the computer.  They had scanned some pictures of themselves  and were twisting their features around using Photoshop.  One of the pictures showed one of them with a face twisted toward the center of the face.  It looked very wierd and very cool.  The point is that the idea or inspiration can come at you from anywhere, anyone and at any time.  Keep your eyes opened and you will notice many cool and unusual things around you everyday that can serve as the spark that begins what will end up being a wonderful design.

Materials and tools

The materials needed to start a mask are fairly inexpensive and can usually be found in a good art store that sells sculpting supplies.  I sculpt with an oil based clay called Roma Plastilina.  This is by fare the best sculpting clay that I have ever used.  It comes in four consistencies that range from soft (#1) to hard (#4).  I like to sculpt with #3 because it hold detail very well and is still pliable enough to be easily modeled.  There are other oil based and wax based clays that can be used but none of them are as easy to work with as Roma.  Roma is sold in 2 pound blocks.  I usually use between 10 and 20 pounds of clay to sculpt a mask design.  It depends on the size of the mask.  I should mention right now that I do not sculpt the mask from a solid block of clay.  I apply the clay to a "life cast" of a persons head.  A life cast is a copy of a persons head and shoulders, usually made out of plaster or other gypsum products.  It is made by making a flexable mould directly from a person's head.  The reason I use a life cast is mainly to make sure that the mask will conform to the contours of the eye sockets.

This is a life cast of a person that I used on a previous project.  You will notice the clay on the back half of the head.  This is part of the sculpture from the last project I did.  I sometimes leave the clay on the back half of a life cast so that I can save some time by not having to re apply the clay on the next project.  It only saves about 10 minutes of time but what the hell.

This head will be used as the foundation for the mask that I am making for this class.  It is made out of casting plaster.  This is the same kind of plaster that pottery molds are made out of.  

As I have already said, the main reason for using a life cast is to make sure that the mask will fit around the contours of a persons eye sockets.  Another advantage to using a life cast is to help you make sure that the mask will fit over a persons head.  A life cast has the same demensions as the person who was molded for the cast.  

An alternative to a life cast would be a styrofoam wig block.  Its only really purpose is to serve  as a basic human head shape.  They are usually not anatomically correct so you will have to take many measurements when sculpting to make sure that the mask will fit over a human head.  You may also have problems getting the eye openings  of the mask to follow the contour of a human face.  The best thing about a wig block is that they are cheap and take up a lot of space.  Without a wig block or life cast you would have to buy a lot of clay.

You will need sculpting tools to model the clay .  There are many tools available to model clay but none of them has any magic that will make you a good sculptor.  That is all up to you and your dedication to practice and study.  I have nearly 40 sculpting tools but I actually use 5 or six of them on a regular basis.  The rest of them are either designed for specific purposes or for use with specific modeling materials such as wax or foam.  I will use the tools shown  below to sculpt the mask for this class. These tools are very simple and inexpensive.  I think I payed less than $10.00 for all of them.  I will only use these three tools to sculpt the mask for this class to help illustrate that the sculpture is not a result of the tools.  There is no magic in the tools.  The magic has to come from within you.

Getting started

Sculpting with clay can become a little messy and will definately ruin carpet if the clay gets stuck on it.  You should plan to sculpt somewhere without carpet.  You will also want to make sure that you have good lighting.  A single lightbulb on the ceiling is not very good sculpting light.  It is too directional.  I like to do most of my sculpting with diffused light.  We will talk more about light later but for now, try to have several light sources that fully alluminate the sculpture. The light should be soft and not so bright that it causes a reflection on the clay.  You will have to decide if you are going to sculpt standing up or sitting down.   I like to sculpt sitting down only because I sometimes like to sculpt for 8 hours at a time and don't like to stand for that length of time, if I have a choice.  The truth is that it doesn't make that much difference one way or the other.

You will want to see your sculpture from all sides as you model it so rather than having to pick up the sculpture and turn it I suggest that you buy a lazy susan or a rotating platform.  You can buy the rotating platform base at any good hardware store.  These platforms are oftem used to make rotating platforms for dinning room tables.  You can cut a 24 inch diameter circle out of plywood and attach the rotating platform hareware to the bottom of it.  It is so simple  and inexpensive to do and will make your sculpting life so much easier.  You can turn your sculpture with ease even if it weighs a lot.

Sculpting

Here is the beginning of our class mask.  The design is  a man with his face twisted in a a circular fashion.  I like to establish the look of the design as quickly as possible.  To help with this effort I heat up the clay that I am using.  You can put the clay on a tray and warm it in an oven at about 200 degrees F. for a half of an hour.  When the clay is warm you can model it very quickly.  The photo to the left shows my design after about 45 minutes of sculpting time.  The objective, when starting a sculpture, is to  block in the look of the design.  During the first few hours of sculpting I try to think only of the over all shape of the design.  When this sculpture is complete it will still look, basically, like this picture.

After about 4 hours of sculpting, the design is starting to take shape.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the sculpture after 6 hours of work.  Most everything that I wanted to express with this design is in place.  The sculpture is still very rough so now I will begin fine tuning  the form and adding broad details.

 

 

 

Next lesson we will disguss  sculpting techniques and philosophy in greater detail .

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