: Slightly off topic project, but it's going to be the same skills, right? I'm
: planning on making myself a face mask (for a ball)

My niece is a performer/owner of a Euorpean theater group and they make all of their own masks. Here is how they do it.

1. Get "Rigid Wrap" from an art store. It is plaster coated cloth all ready for making face molds.

2. Coat your face with vaseline and have someone apply strips of Rigid Wrap to your face. It takes 15 minutes before the mold can be removed from your face. The product comes with instructions for this process. Cost is about $5 which will make about 1 and 1/2 masks. Don't try it unless you can breathe through your nose for 15 minutes.

3. Use the inside surface to make a positive replecation of your face with the molding material of your choice. Use the outside surface to make a wearable mask. The moldable paper mache that comes in a brick makes a very nice surface that can be molded, shaped, and sanded. For a rougher and cheaper method, make your own paper mache out of news paper, flour, and water (see right hand image in link below).

Both rigid wrap and paper mache are alot easier and quicker to work with than fiberglass. Keep the plaster out your hair and eyelashes unless you grease them up or cover them with wet bits of tissue.

See the left hand image in the following link of a rigid wrap cast of my daughter's face. Note the nose hole for breathing. Holes do not need to be left for the eyes. I chose to skirt around the eyelashes in this case.

Ted