Hello all,
An interesting project came our way, a client brought in a cloth Halloween clown mask, dated around the early 1900's, this mask had mouth, nostril and eye holes, which produced a disquieting look, not to mention the hair is actual human hair.....
The client wanted to have this on display, and was curious of ways we could
accomplish this, our suggestion was to place it in a shadow box.
As the mask was made of cloth we would need something rigid to maintain its form,
we decided on using a foam head with the back half cut off to make a flat area to enable
us to attach the mask to the matting with stitching.
But there was a concern with the client,
mainly concerning the holes in the mask.
The client remarked about how the foam would show through, and then the conversation went as follows;
The Client - "you know, the foam might be too visible through the eye holes...
do you think you can find some antique glass blown doll eyes to attach to the head?"
The guy who just happens to have a small hoard of antique glass blown doll eyes(don't ask)
"Yes, we can provide those...."
Client - "I wonder if you could also source a sculptor to maybe, sculpt some eyelids for those eyes?"
The guy with the doll eyes who also happens to be a sculptor.
"Yes, we can do that."
Client - " and maybe a mouth and teeth?
The guy
"Sure we can do that."
Client - "Great! but, make sure you make it creepy."
So begins the project.
Firstly we began to source the foam head and the tool needed to cleanly cut the foam in half.
After receiving the foam head, the hollowing of the eye sockets was the first task, followed with the
attaching of the antique glass blown doll eyes.
After attaching the eyes, there is this great epoxy based putty that can be sculpted while it dries.
The proportions of the foam head are not exactly to scale and needed to be elongated to fit within the mask, hence the enlarged nose.
Next was the addition of the mouth and a lovely smile.
The chin followed, but instead of being sculpted it was made of foam pieces to fill the area.
It later would need to be painted to give that
nice skin feel.
Turning into the stuff of nightmares.........
Next was the attaching and sewing of the mask to the foam head and the results were this.
Once the mask was fully assembled,
we proceeded to make the shadow box, hand stitch the mask to a matting.
The depth of the mask required that we combine two frames doubled up to a depth of
7 inches to safely house the mask.
Upon completing this order the owner of this fine establishment was seen scrutinizing the finished product, peering into the many holes of the mask, trying to see further inside.
After a few minutes, he shudders, looks to me and says "well, if you were going for creepy,
creepiness achieved, please wrap it up so I can stop looking at it."
This was a very fun project, I would definitely do it again.
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