Back in my late teens-early twenties, I occasionally made papier mache masks for theatrical/costume purposes. Though I never achieved the mastery of mask-making that my classmate Doug Witt did (see his work here – it’s terrific!)), I’m proud of the work I did.
This Troll Queen theatre mask was created for a one-act play called ‘Under the Bridge,’ for the character ( duh) of the Troll Queen. The features were sculpted from plasticine onto a plaster mould of the actor’s face. I then applied a very light layer of vaseline to the sculpt, and covered it in papier mache. once removed and cleaned up, this papier mache cast was attached to a basic blank of the actor’s face with more papier mache, at which stage the ‘hair’ and the elastic (to hold the mask on the actor) was attached as well.
I then painted it to finish it. In hindsight, this mask is probably too dark to really read on stage; if I was doing it again, I’d be much less subtle about the highlights; the paint job is more appropriate for costume parties or close-up theatre, like street theatre. Overall, however, both myself and the players were pretty happy with my work. 
