Playing with latex: Mask making

So maybe a whole Portal gun made in a tiny window of time with limited experience and materials was a wee bit ambitious?

Yeah, I figure it was.

But hey! New Year! New start, right? And you know where we're starting? We're starting small. I figure the best thing to do, rather than charge in glue-guns a'blazing and tackle a suit of N7 armour (oh God, I wish) I'd wind it all back for the start of 2013 and start extremely small and work my way up, making small things with small quantities of materials to learn some valuable lessons and maybe build my way up in scope, size and ambition as time goes on.

So anyways, masks, they're pretty small, right? At least those little domino masks you see on certain iconic heroes. On top of that, they're all pretty consistent in terms of design and effect, a flexible covering over the eye area (the flexibility probably comes more from an artistic requirement to display emotion and reaction through facial expressions, something hindered by solid masks, rather than any technical reason though). Keeping all this in mind, I settled on having a play with these masks to start the new year off in small scale.

Tools & Materials: Cheap paintbrushes
                                Generic Liquid latex
                                Black artist's acrylic paint
                                Polystyrene mannequin's head
                                Craft knife
                                Scissors
                                Generic white chalk

Time taken: One day (an evening's work, a night's worth of drying and a morning)

The process:

So to start with, I got everything ready, this is extremely simple, so there's relatively few materials involved, just the latex and paint for the mask and the head and brush as tools. The reason for the head mannequin is that latex, as it dries, takes on the form of whatever it's applied to (hence its widespread use as a material for making moulds in the casting process), because I wanted this to fit perfectly to a face, the only real option is a mannequin head.

Now, I've seen some people say you can use latex house paint to colour the liquid latex (which on its own is white and dries to a yellow / clear solid, you can buy it precoloured, or use paint pigments, but that limits customisation or is a load of effort) but I don't know why you would when artist's acryllic is cheaper, comes in a wider range of colours and is more maneagable due to squeezy bottles. In the above picture I added a tiny amount of black acrylic paint to the latex and mixed it in, although it's slightly grey in the picture, it actually dries truer to the paint's colour, so this is something to keep in mind.

From what I've seen, latex can be applied directly to the object that'll give it its shape with no releasing agent, so here I simply brushed it on to the head, I made sure to paint it on in a area larger than the final product to ensure plenty of material to work with. Above is the first coat. I left this to dry before proceeding with the rest.

And above, is the 9th. Because you're brushing it on, the layers are very, very thin. Meaning there's a requirement for multiple layers to actually make any sort of thickness. Of course, we all know that I'm infamously impatient, so I'm sure we can all guess what I did next.

That's right, I slathered liquid latex on like there was no tomorrow. Unfortunately, whilst this did help build up the mask in a much shorter amount of time, it also destroyed the mask's smoothness, creating a lump uneven surface. Despite the amount I'd applied at this point, we can still see that the mask is quite insubstantial in terms of thickness

A lot more latex later, we can finally see some serious thickness developing on the mask, of course, due to a constantly rushed and thick application, we can see some serious texture developing.

Interstingly though, those drips of latex that ran off due to excessive application, when dried, despite being only being a layer thick were easily peeled off without tearing and proved surprisingly strong. Although I wouldn't make a mask out of one thick layer, this seems to demonstrate the strength of liquid latex and suggests that I could actually make a mask much thinner (turning thickness into an aesthetic, rather than practical choice)

 

Here's the mask the morning after. I gave it an entire night to dry (in an uncharacteristic show of restraint) to ensure the cutting process didn't get sticky.

I marked out the area of those mask that I wanted to cut using chalk to draw guide lines and a craft knife to score the initial cuts whilst the mask was still on the mannequin.

Now, I've heard complex methods for peeling masks of their forms, involving talcum power, makeup brushes etc, but I was able to peel this mask off without any aids. I'm presuming that this is due to the mask's thickness, but it may be something to do with the brand of latex used.

The next stage was taking a pair of scissors to the latex, it was surprisingly thick (at least 3-4mm) and this gave it a real rigidity, maintaining its form exceptionally well when away from the mold. The eye holes were a real pain to cut due to their internal curve, the knife wasn't able to pierce the latex, so I had to use scissors to cut, resulting in a mucb clumsier finish.

A bit more cutting later and this is what we've finished up with, there's not a lot to say, it's just a latex mask, but above the mask is just resting on two pins in the mannequin's brow as it kept sliding off due to its weight. Aside from those pins it's not fixed down anywhere, so the closeness to form we see is entirely maintained by the mask itself.

SO, what have we learned?

1: Latex; surprisingly strong. Although I like the effect of the mask standing out distinctly from the forms face, the run off drips have demonstrated the surprising strength of a tiny amount of latex. Also, despite it only being a few millimetres thick, it was surprisingly hard to cut.
2: Acrylic paint is a wonderful colouring agent for liquid latex, you only need a tiny bit to achieve the desired colour and the dried result presents a much bolder colour then the liquid mix
3: I'm impatient, who knew?
4: Something I've found out whilst looking at how to make a smooth mask (apparently there are a lot of other impatient sorts out there) is that latex applied in extremely thin layers via a sponge is the best method to use. I was worried that I'd get through the world of sponges doing this, as latex dries quite quickly in a thin layer, thus making the sponge unusable after one layer, but apparently if you keep the spone in the latex mix, neither it nor the latex will dry out. Something to keep in mind for next time.

Speaking of next time, with a better understanding of how latex works, dries and the application process, I'm hoping to create a smoother version of the above mask.

Until then!