Owl Eye Mask

This mask came from a concept of a character I was designing for a sub species, inspired by birds and tengu (supernatural birds of prey, in Japanese). The character wore a half mask, with a beak(mocking a bird's beak) and had cracks in several different spots and the drawn mask was more intimidating than the physical mask. This project took about a week and a half to complete.

Materials used:

1. A plastic mask - used as a base

2. Plaster wrap

3. Acrylic paint; white, tan, black, white base paint and clear coat

4. Fabric - lining the inside of the mask

5. White feathers - excluding the owl feather(used as a prop)

Time taken: approx. 8 hours

First, I sketched six simple drawings of the mask, in different views.

I used a plastic mask as a base to start building the owl mask.

I began by laying down strips of the wrap on the mask then began building up the cheeks, eyebrows and nose to give it more character. I layered this about 5 times to strengthen it.

On the inside of the mask, I cut two rectangles to fit the mask. Using hot glue, I glued the fabric on and formed pockets for each side of the mask for feathers.

I painted a white base coat for the mask, on both sides, carefully. I painted this coat four times after drying.

Later, I mixed tan and white acrylic paint to mimic bone, then painted the entire mask. Then I used the tan paint(unmixed) to add some shading for cracks, around the eyes, and under the eye brow and layered the shading with a mixture of tan paint and black. For the cracks in the mask, I used a thin paint brush and carefully painted thin, uneven lines for cracks in the mask. Around the eyes, I used the black paint and did a similar method. After doing those details, I used the plain tan paint and began dabbing the brush against the mask in different spots to add scuff marks and more shading. As a finishing touch, I used a small brush and white paint to add artificial highlights on the eye brows, cheeks and nose. After letting the paint dry, the following day, I began painting on a clear coat on the mask to harden it.

As a finishing touch, I selected white, fluffy, feathers and stuck them in the pockets of the mask.