Princess Mononoke

Of course, with Halloween just around the corner, I am working on numerous projects all at once. Every year I have hand-made costumes for my daughters, and just because they're in college doesn't mean I have to stop! I ask them in July, what do you want to be? Then I can plan and shop for patterns, fabric, etc.

This year, my oldest wants to be Princess Mononoke from the anime film. Not your typical Disney princess, this character was raised by wolves. Is she trying to tell me something?

We found some fantastic white fake fur at Discount Fabrics in Berkeley, thanks to a store-wide sale because of Burning Man! White cotton apron... seriously. Also found some very cool deer antler tips at The Bone Room in Albany, so all I need to do is drill holes for a string. Done.

The real challenge is the mask. I've looked at Google images and YouTube videos of cosplay folks, and bless their hearts, the quality ranges from awesome to terrible. My mask making skills are pretty basic, you know, glue stuff onto those pre-cut plastic masks from Michael's for a Venetian... plaster cloth... etc. This is a very particular shape. If you notice, the "eyes" are set too wide for a normal human face. Right away, I needed to decide, should she have eye holes to be able to see? Since she isn't trying to win any cosplay costume contest, the answer was, yes.

My first attempt was to use plaster cloth on a frisbee. Halfway through, I am not happy with how it's coming along.

The strategy is -- if you look real close at the source image -- there are tiny black triangles to either side of the big round eye circles. 

Also, looking to my husband's hometown area of Akita prefecture, there is a very cool annual festival involving men dressing up as mountain ogres. The "nama-hage" dudes wear large wooden masks and scraggly wigs and stomp around roaring to make children cry. Yeah... this explains a few things about the husband. But I digress. Looking at the nama-hage on YouTube, you can see that the wooden masks are oversized, and the actual human dudes inside are seeing through the fangs of the roaring mouth. 

Plan B, starting over with a wicker basket and a new template of red fabric. 

No more plaster cloth, I plan to sculpt the mask shape leaving the triangle areas open (as slits). The eyes, that I have already made from Fimo polymer clay, will stick on later.

Abandoning the plaster cloth idea, I am going to try another of my favorite materials:  Sculptamold!

Wish me luck.