One month til Christmas...which is why I'm posting Halloween stuff

Reeeeally late with this one, but I have an excuse! I was sick!
And I am forgetful.
Anyway, have my Halloween post!

So, last post, I told you about the Witch Doctor I was making (the one with the Tiki mask), and here's how he looks as a whole:

 

After making the mask, I started by plopping some chicken bones into a cup full of hydrogen peroxide. I left them there for about a day, not longer, because I didn't want them to get too white.

(I was too lazy to make bones. Plus, these look nicer)

 Then I sculpted a skull out of air drying clay and put it into my mini oven so it would dry quicker. Because if you leave everything to the last minute, like I always do, you can't wait for everything to dry naturally.

 And here are some pictures of the Witch Doctor in the making.

 

 The base is made from wood, wood glue, and some screws here and there.

 Then I added some news paper and lots of tape~

 After that, I added some of my fail paper mache clay (which is my enemy. If you are better at making paper mache clay than I am, you can use it for the whole thing), to form that nice little belly. Then some tissue to get an even coloured, wrinkly skin, and voila, you have a naked dancing chicken.

 Some paint and a hula skirt (which was super simple to make and took way less material than I thought it would) and the body is finished! I then glued on the mask, made another skirt, but didn't tie it together, and pinned it to the back of the mask.

 

 Here we have my mum, sneaking to our neighbour's window to scare her 8D

 And this is me. I already have a pumpkin kind of shape, so going as a pumpkin person was ideal~ Clothes and mask (and witch doctor) were, like always, made last minute, but still I like how everything looks. (although I had wanted to have orange arms and legs as well, but sadly no time for that)

And that's it! 

We had friends and their little ones over, and because they were dressed up as the Weasleys (Arthur, Molly, Ron and Ginny) my sister had a little event for them, where they had to practise spells.

It was cute :3

And that's what happened on Halloween~

Yes, Halloween in Vienna is boring (we had one group of Trick or Treaters...ONE!), but it was nice anyway.

Still I hope that next year, we'll be at Disneyland again 8D

Until the next post!

It's Halloween-lo-ween, everybody!

Well...not quite yet.
But I'm currently working on our Halloween props!

My sister wants to be a vampire on the beach for this year's Halloween (I will hopefully be a pumpkin person in a vintage bathing suit), so we decided to adapt our props to a beach theme.
I'm working on a witch doctor, who will be dancing on a sand grave, and thought I'd show you how I made the Tiki mask.
Hopefully someone will find this little tutorial useful and make lots and lots of masks 8D

You will need:
a (thin) insulation foam sheet
a Stanley knife (or any other knife that will cut through foam)
a pencil
(wood/white) glue
acrylic paints
a brush

Start by cutting out the shape you want the mask to have. It doesn't need to be perfect, since you will be cutting into the edges anyway.
Take your pencil, and draw 3, or more, straight lines. This will make the mask look like it's made of boards of wood instead of one whole piece. Remember to press down with your pencil, so it will leave an impression. Make these lines especially thick.
Now draw lines and squiggles all over the mask, but remember to always stop at the straight lines, since that's where the 'board' would end.
Decide where you want the eyes to be, and cut them out. Then cut out eyebrows, a nose, lips and teeth, if you want.
Distress your 'wood' a bit, by cutting into the edges, especially where your 'boards' meet. You can also take any object (I used the blunt side of a knife) and hit your foam with it. Yes, you will be a foam abuser, but it will be worth it.
Before you glue the features on, try the glue on a piece of scrap foam, to see if the glue melts the foam. I used wood glue, which takes ages to dry, but keeps the foam intact.

After the glue has dried, take your acrylic paint and give your mask a base coat. It doesn't matter if the surface doesn't look perfect, just try to get the paint into all those grooves.

 After the paint has dried, take a light brown acrylic, and paint the mask. Try painting big spaces with only a little colour, and try not to get all the paint into the lines. Also, when you paint, use long brush strokes, starting from the top, going down (or vice versa).

You can stop at the previous step, or you can add some colour, like I did. Just do it like you did with the brown paint, a tiny bit of colour for a big space.

And that would be my first tutorial! Yay!
Hoped it helped!