Hack a Halloween Plaque

I picked up a costume piece last year at a clearance sale (best way to halloween shop) thinking I would cut it up and just use the skull part, but its really to flimsey so I decided to use it as a mold

I use this mix of materials for a lot of things, Its very close to paper mache' but it dries hard like plastic, its also very moldable and sandable if you soak the tissue in the glue/paint/water mix. Ive never tried a mold with this many different planes so I was really hoping it would work, in hindsight I probably should have used a release of some king (like cooking spray) or maybe just allowed more time for it to dry...

 you'll need a mold of some kind
 white school glue
 acrylic craft or artist paint
  water
 toilet paper or face tissue or papertowel (paper towel doesn't mold as easily to some shapes but it adds strenght in areas that need it)

Smaller pieces of tissue work best in small areas so I ripped the stacked sqaures in half and some in half again, the rough edges blend together really well. I then mixed up approx equal parts of glue and water with half as much water and painted the mix into the mold. Lay some strips of paper on the wet area and with a tapping motion, push the paper into the mix, keeping the brush wet with the mix helps lay the paper down. Cover the area you want with one or two overlapping layers and allow to dry ( I set it in front of a fan) Repeat until its the thickness you want/need, I did about 6 layers and the final thickness is around 1/8" although some areas are thicker

24hrs later...ooooh man, the moment of reveal..did it work.. will it come off? slowly start peeling the papermat from the mold, its pretty tuff but still you have to take your time and be careful. I ended up with a few areas that stuck but its easilly repaired, a mold release may have helped or allowing for more drying time. The mold will clean up with some rubbing alcohol.

I wanted a red undercoat so I used a slightly thinned red craft paint to lay more tissue over the rough areas and then applied a couple layers of red and copper metallic craft acrylic paint

I did a rough cut with large scissors and then refined it with a small pair

A little black paint and its ready to be glued to the drawbridge, hopefully it won't get crushed !