The Phantom of the Opera Leather Mask

This was my first foray into making a leather mask. I still do not know how I did this. It all started in my Stagecraft class with our final project of the semester. We were to pick from a list of props of a corresponding play or we could pick our own prop from a play, the only catch would be that my professor would have to approve of the choice.

At first, I was going to do the raygun from "The Rocky Horror Show" because I love "The Rocky Horror Show" and I thought it would be a pretty cool prop. Until I found out that there was a whole list of what was required in order to carry a fake prop onto campus property, so I just nixed that idea. (I'm still thinking about making the raygun and being Magenta for next Halloween though. hehe)

But then I had an epiphany - "The Phantom of the Opera" and "The Phantom" (Erik)'s mask! I knew the play and when I found out that the most recent production masks are made of leather, I thought, that will be a definite challenge for me since I've always wanted to get into leather craft. So, after watching tutorials and researching (a lot) on how to make a leather mask, I decided to venture into doing this.

This is the plaster of my patient sister's face for the mask.

The above plaster mask, of course, fell apart as soon as the wet leather was applied to it because, as I later found out, the plaster mask is a negative mold of the face and I needed as a positive mold of her face. So, now I know that when I do my next mask, I'll need to make one of those.

And three molds later, (which I will pictures later), came up with this:

"The Phantom of the Opera" mask (finished)

Not bad, eh? The funny thing now is, I'm addicted to it, so once I figure out what to do about getting/making a face form, I think I'm going to do a series of art masks. I already have a lot of ideas what I can do. :D