Mask Success!

I was still so desperately unhappy with how the mask was coming along, in Sculptamold paste, that I decided to halt that effort halfway through. Instead I used it as a base form, and went back to the original plan of making the whole thing in FIMO polymer clay.

One reason I had hesitated to go with this plan, at first, is that FIMO comes in tiny 3 inch blocks. I buy the "FIMO - soft" but in reality it is not all that soft. It is primarily designed for making cute little necklace beads and earring bobbles and tiny tiny tiny flower buds to glue onto photo frames. For larger projects it takes a lot of kneading to get it to soften up, and it does not spread or stretch easily.

Michael's craft stores sells a Pasta Machine For Use With Polymer Clays. No seriously, that's what it is called. It's a hand cranking gadget that claims create uniform sheets. Uh-huh, it looks nice in the picture but the reviews are mixed. So I went back to the ol' empty jelly jar, hand kneading, lots of grunting and sweating, and.... ta-da! Made myself a pie crust of cherry red FIMO.

Despite my complaints, what I like about FIMO is that it bakes to the consistency of milk jug plastic. You can get it really thin. Though it doesn't blend smoothly into itself (like ceramic clay), the pieces adhere to each other pretty well.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. At last!

Not half bad, huh?

The last thing I need to figure out is how to make straps or a structure to wear it on a human face!!