Altered Vessels Studio

Not entirely sure how to tackle this part but I’m going to make it up as I go along. I’ll start with the mask first this time instead of hair then bake buns. I think that’s going to be the easiest with trying to blend the Pop hair fringe in so I’ll see how it goes.

I started by blobbing out the basic shapes of the mask and facial features then smoothed it all out. At this point I thought the eyes were a bit too close together for a Pop so iii gets an eye job. I could see the eye bumps underneath now so that was a better guide.

Tough day in the office perving at his face all zoomed to the max 😁

Unfortunately now he needs a chin job. I add blobs of clay to bulk up the areas and smoosh it all around and smooth it in.

I’m using some of the lace I had in my craft stash and use the rough texture of the lace to imprint on the clay to make those dark textured parts of the mask around the mouth and eye.

I need to perve at iii’s face a whole bunch while I mark out and carve the sigil into the mask. Unfortunately I was perving too much and not paying attention to what I was doing….

It’s at this point that I realised the importance of checking proportions with your reference photo as you’re going and not just oogling his awesomeness (and the craftmanship of the mask 😍 ). The top of the crown was a little too high in proportion to the side wing runes. Not much to do about it but smooth it all over and redo that part of the design on the face.

I think it needs a bit extra clay on top of the mask to allow for hair layer bump – bigger on top to accentuate mask edge after adding hair layer for hair texture sculpting and buns. Not quite sure but at least I can bake over it if that’s not the right way to go.

Instead of painting the sigil on his third eye I’m going to print some tiny decals using a vinyl cutter. A woman posted a pic of her nails on the Vessel is God facey group and mentioned that she made her own ST nail decals – a little Jerry too! I’m so doing that so I can use it for the masks and also my nails!

Anyway the mask is off for a lovely bake at 135 degrees for 30 mins. I tend to do 25 and check and leave it for another 5 just in case of temperature fluctuations. I really need to get an oven thermometer so that I don’t screw up the bake.

You may notice a bit more texture on mouth in the after pic than in the pre-bake pic as I started futzing with it a bit and I like that extra deep mangled maw bit of detail like the real mask a bit better.

So what are you doing for Arcadia Day? I’ve taken the day off from my day job and I’m going to spend the whole day sculpting and listening to Even in Arcadia over and over and over again! I’m going to get some yummy snacks and it’s going to be a whole day.

Worship! 🖤