This was a personal project to practice sculpting, mold making, and creating movable parts in the sculpted piece. It is a functional mask. The design is a dragon-inspired, fantasy creature, with its colors inspired by a zebra finch and the structure inspired by a deer.
The concept sketch and plan for a moving jaw mechanism.
Sculpted the desired shape using clay. Make a casting mold using silicone for the base of the mold. After Casting the silicone mold around the clay sculpture, I used plaster fabric to make a hard outer shell for the mold to hold shape when in use. Lastly I poured polyurethane plastic into the mold and spud it slowly to cast a "shell" of the mold to form the final mask.
Used power tools to cut the two halves of the mask base apart, as well as other areas of the mask, and create a hinge joint for the jaw. Next step was to take a pattern of the mask, using tape, to then attack faux fur.
After that is was just all the little details of sculpting the tongue, lip, horns out of foam, teeth out of polymer clay, extra feathers, and making resin eyes.
Side profile, wearing the finished piece, to show its movable jaw.
