Space Cowboy Mask

When maskmaker Tony Fuemeller suggested to me that we should each make masks inspired by the places we live, one image immediately sprang into my mind: a face full of cowboy boots, radiating like the petals of a weird flower. There was an implied motion, like each of the boots had just completed a badass roundhouse kick. At least, there was to me.

I knew it was going to be a tough build, and a complicated paint job, but if I could pull it off I was pretty sure it would look awesome. When I got home, the first thing I did was draw a sketch and label it “boot face.” It wound up being remarkably similar to the final product.

For this project I required my usual paper mache supplies: newspapers, flour and water, plus plaster gauze for the mask base. I needed card-stock for the boots, in this case manila folders and Bristol, plus masking tape and duct tape. You'll want scissors and an X-Acto knife, unless your fingernails are razor sharp!

Getting the details on the boots required paper mache clay, which I sometimes make myself, but in this case I wanted smoother more professional stuff. A set of clay sculpting tools is really helpful, but you can do it with toothpicks and a craft knife if you don't happen to have that sort of thing on hand.

In this case I used a pair of eye bolts to attach the ties, which I've never done on a mask before or since, but I like the look. And finally, lots of paint, of course.

In order to pull it off, I needed to make a bunch of miniature cowboy boots. Not having any practical experience as a cordwainer, I started by doing an online search for “cowboy boot patterns.”

I dismissed the patterns for decorative crocheted baby booties, and cowboy boots sculpted out of fondant, both of which accounted for a surprising percentage of the results. Ultimately I found a collection of basic shapes that I could cut out of manila folder (or sheets of Bristol, when the manila folder supply ran dry, and even index cards) and tape into the form I wanted. I used that as a guide, and drew out my own patterns by hand.

So for the next few days, in my downtime after work, I made several boots and pasted them over with paper mache. They weren't as realistic as they would have been if I'd sculpted the shapes out of paper clay, but they were fairly uniform, and way lighter than clay would have been. Once I had a number of boots on hand, I was able to proceed to the next step.

I took a plaster gauze mold of my face and, using my proto-boots as markers, began to bootmap my face. I'd a pretty clear vision of how the mask should look, but that wasn't the same thing as assuring the mask had balance and a pleasing form.

Trying out different placements and angles, I found a shape that I thought could be achieved with thirteen boots, and marked those points on the mask. So I completed thirteen proto-boots, then taped wooden skewers into them and drove them into the plaster. That way I could view a rough assembly and be sure that my plan was working!

I made the boots in batches, and while the later ones were drying, I was also working on adding more details to the earlier ones. Using paper mache clay, I built and smoothed the toebox, tongue, and counter for each boot. I rolled out thin sheets of clay to cut soles for each boot, and thick blocks to cut out heels. These I brushed with flour paste, the perfect glue for attaching them to the boots, and pressed them into place.

Shaft design I could save for later, but I would need to have the foot portion of the boots completed before affixing them to the base. Can you imagine trying to add detail to those boots after they were all anchored into place and jockeying for room on my face?

First I attached the three boots down the center line, then worked my way out from there. It's a painstaking process because the paper strips are pretty weak until they've cured, so you can only do a little bit at a time. Paper on the boot, then brace it into position while the paper dries, then reinforce the paper with clay. After the clay dries, the bond is nice and strong.

You cannot tape the boots into place because nothing really adheres to the plaster gauze surface. I held each boot in place with my hand while applying the paper strips, then continued to hold it while setting the joint with a hairdryer. That was effective enough to keep them steady while adding another layer of paper mache, and then I would let it dry thoroughly before proceeding.

Once the center boots were placed, I could use yarn to tie off the new boots and maintain the correct angle while they were drying. It's very important to ensure that the boots dry at the right angle, so the finished mask will be balanced, and look great from every side!

To decorate the shafts of the boots, I applied a thin layer of paper clay over the entire surface and smoothed it into a good shape, including formation of the scallop against the face. Then I would cut the design directly into the soft clay, and carefully remove anything that needed to be removed.

The shaft designs had to be established while the boots were being attached, because with each additional boot, the face got just a little more crowded. It's a lot harder to get in there and etch a design onto a boot, once it's completely surrounded by other boots.

I wanted the designs to be simple, with a few slightly more complicated flourishes, but most of all I wanted every boot to be completely different. I intended to keep the palette primarily in the earthtones, as typical cowboy boots fall into this range, and I didn't want the mask to feel too 'busy'. But I didn't want any pairs, or repeated patterns, or even two boots that used too similar a color scheme. They all had to be individual, so every boot I attached was a new challenge.

The boots in front of my ears, where I planned to attach the rings for strapping the mask on, were probably the most difficult. They had to overlap the side of the mask by about fifty percent, which made them hard to affix in the first place. The rings were sunk in with clay and then the opening papered over, but it took a while before they started to feel strong. Paper mache is powerful stuff, though!

When I first conceived of the design, I knew that the shape of the boots would lead to some 'negative space' on the face, but it was hard to know in advance what exactly that was going to look like. I had always planned to solve the problem by creating leather patches out of clay, with tool marks and everything, and painting them in the same manner as the boots. In theory, that seemed like an ideal solution.

What I was less certain of is the mustache, which I also had planned from pretty early in the process. I knew that the color scheme of the mask would have a lot of brown, tan, rust, and other dingy sorts of colors, and I thought it might – just might – look pretty fantastic if there was a kind of blonde leather mustache on it, popping all yellow there right in the middle of the face!

I probably put too much thought into it, as I often do, but the mustache was the make-or-break feature on this particular mask. The sunburst of boots was a high-concept idea, but the mustache was really the only part of it that told you anything about the character.

If this was an actual being, as opposed to just a mask, then the mustache would be like a personal choice that this bootfaced creature had made. It's putting a spin on it that the boots, alone, did not offer. But I loved the way it looked in my head, so I busted out the rolling pin and I gave it a mustache.

The build was pretty challenging, with such a complex form, but the final paint job was always going to be the hardest part. After spending a whole month making the mask, I wisely chose to step away and take some time off before I tried to paint it.

(Parenthetically, when I use the words “take some time off,” what I actually mean is that I made two other masks in the interim. I just needed a little time away from this one.)

When at last I returned to the mask, I was refreshed and ready to go! First things first, I had to paint the lowest part of the mask, the deepest background, the gullies between the boots and below the leather patches. For that I used a straight burnt umber, a deep dark brown that would work well with my intended color range.

Now that the paint job was finally underway, I began to actually feel up to the task. One at a time, I started to tackle the boots. One at a time, but bearing in mind the balance between boots that are symmetrically opposite, and the juxtaposition of adjacent boots (toe, shaft, and sole, I wouldn't want to cluster the colors in an unattractive manner!)

I used special colors down the center line, and around the mouth. Blue and green to the sides, red and yellow (with pops of orange and purple) down the middle. I think this helps draw the eye and establish the face-shape within the mad cluster of boots.

The biggest challenge was finding a way in with a brush, when some of those angles between the boots get pretty tight! There were times when I had to wrap an adjacent boot with plastic and tape to protect it, or use a brush with a broken end to get into hard-to-reach areas like a crook-necked dental tool. I am certain that such brushes exist commercially, but I made my own by deliberately cracking a brush right below the metal binding and just using it really carefully.

I'm finally finishing this Instructable in May of 2021, but I actually made the mask nearly two years ago. The Space Cowboy is currently hanging on a wall at Art Center East in La Grande, Oregon as part of a two-man mask show called Missing Your Face. I spent two solid years making masks for the show, and in order to preserve the surprise I kept most of them off of social media altogether – let alone the thorough exposure of an Instructable.

When I made this, I was pretty sure that it would be the most impressive thing I had to offer at the gallery, but it was early days! I like to think that I managed to do one or two pieces that eclipse it, but the Space Cowboy remains a real highlight. It was the first inspiration I had for the show, and the mask expresses just what I was imagining. In the week before the installation, I did repaint the chin-boot because it had never sat quite right with me, and that led to a few further revisions, but it mostly went on display just the way it was originally made.

Perhaps optimistically, I believe that I have gotten better at making masks, over the course of the thirty masks I made for the show. Consequently I can't help thinking that the Space Cowboy might have turned out better if I'd made it twenty-fourth, instead of third. On the other hand, the sense of triumph that I got out of this mask was one of the most important boosts I had during the process, so no regrets!