How We Created Volcano Girl’s Leather Mask

We were invited to make a mask in leather for an upcoming movie. I’ve always wanted to be Edna Mode from The Incredibles, designing and building cool outfits for superheros!! This was our chance!

While I’ve decorated a many mask and have had the pleasure of wearing them, I confess I never made a mask from scratch until this year. We were called on a Friday afternoon and she implied that we had only three days to complete this project. Yikes! We immediately sought out a few shops to buy heads as forms. Wouldn’t you know it? Raleigh closes early… like noon on Saturday early. Crap.

So we ran to a display store and a few craft stores to find something that looked like a head. Anything! To our good fortune, we found ourselves -where else- the mask aisle! We picked up a few full face masks (I tried one on to make sure it was life size) and dashed back to the studio. Attempting to stay tight to the artist’s designs, we were in full on design mode, texting the director every 30 minutes with photos to make sure we were headed in the right direction.

Designing templates in Illustrator, cutting out, fitting the paper templates over my face several times over before we cut into the leather was only the beginning. And since we didn’t have the model actresses measurements, I was the next best thing –it’s a good thing I’ve got a big head. I’m not implying the actress had a big head, but if it fits me, it’ll fit anyone. 😉 Once we felt that we had a good template, we moved forward with cutting out the leather and begin forming it on the face mask. We cut a few masks (more than we needed) in case there were any anomalies or if the model needed more than one mask during filming.

Being the creative department that we are, we found several hues of red paint to apply to the mask. It so difficult to know which one is the right one without the director standing by giving us the okie dokie. We gave it our best shot and again, sent photos as clear as possible for her to make an accurate decision. When we had 2 that we liked, we gave them a couple of light coats of sealant to protect both the mask and the model -we didn’t want the paint to bleed on her face while she’s kicking ass.

I wish I could remember the steps and timing to give you a better look at behind the scenes, but as it is, we ran into selling season, recouperation season, and now ramping up season.  I’m also so behind in many other blogging articles, that this one almost didn’t make it.

Movie: VolcanoGirl
For more behind the scenes, check out VolcanoGirl production on Facebook.

Have a great weekend!
Lisa