Introduction: Blighted Beak - Plague Doctor Mask
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About: I am a horror illustrator and a mask maker. I also eat a sizable amount more toast than the average human being. Impressive, I know. For silly ramblings, follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KLawter For …
This mask is based on the Blighted Beak Mask from TF2, but is good for any Plague Doctor costume.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Leather (Varying thicknesses. Don’t know the technical measurements, so check the pics. Used a somewhat thick stuff for most of the mask, then a little bit of thin material for ze “goggles”)
- Leather shears or just some strong scissors
- x-acto
- Leather hole punch
- a “gold” buckle (mine was probably smaller than what’s in the game version, so size is up to you)
- Rivets
- Clear acrylic plastic (I bought a cheap acrylic frame from michael’s)
- Acrylic paint: White and burnt umber(or whatever sort of brown strikes your fancy)
- Strong glue of your choosing(I use E-6000)
Step 1: Main Piece
Draw out your main mask piece on paper. Should look something like this. Make your eyes perfect circles.
Trace onto thicker leather. Cut out. Soak in water and shape it into the correct shape. Use your face to get it right. The beak can take a while. Just keep at it.
Try to keep the eye holes as circular as possible. They tend to get deformed at this stage.
Let dry until hard. Paint white. I did a light wash of burnt umber to give it an aged look.Paint tip of beak with burnt umber like sooo.
Trace onto thicker leather. Cut out. Soak in water and shape it into the correct shape. Use your face to get it right. The beak can take a while. Just keep at it.
Try to keep the eye holes as circular as possible. They tend to get deformed at this stage.
Let dry until hard. Paint white. I did a light wash of burnt umber to give it an aged look.Paint tip of beak with burnt umber like sooo.
Step 2: Goggle Eyes
Cut out two strips of the thin leather. Paint brown.
Fit into each eye socket. Unless you’re a pro or bothered to measure like I did not, it probably will overlap itself.So keep trimming until it fits. Glue into place.
Cut out two circles from the acrylic(takes forever. There's also the option of cusom ordering acrylic circles to size). I used sand paper on mine to give it that frosted look. Would not recommend this if you’d like to see out of it. This is a fairly old tutorial and I have since made many improvements to the design. For this I now cover the lenses with gray stocking material. Same effect, but you can actually see out of them.
Glue into eyes. You may need to trim the edges to make them fit.
Fit into each eye socket. Unless you’re a pro or bothered to measure like I did not, it probably will overlap itself.So keep trimming until it fits. Glue into place.
Cut out two circles from the acrylic(takes forever. There's also the option of cusom ordering acrylic circles to size). I used sand paper on mine to give it that frosted look. Would not recommend this if you’d like to see out of it. This is a fairly old tutorial and I have since made many improvements to the design. For this I now cover the lenses with gray stocking material. Same effect, but you can actually see out of them.
Glue into eyes. You may need to trim the edges to make them fit.
Step 3: Belt
Cut out two leather strips. The width should be based on how big your buckle is. The length should be based on how gigantic your noggin is. One should be shorter than the other, so that the buckle appears on the side of the head.
Cut slit into end of short piece.
I stupidly did not paint my strip brown before this step. I recommend that you do. Then super glue your leather together to keep buckle in place. If you’re feeling fancy you can use a rivet. But I hate rivets and rivets hate me.
On your long strip round one end. Also punch holes down its length, like a belt. Paint.
Cut out two leather pieces in this shape. Hole punch two holes like so. Paint.
Install rivets into holes. Glue one of these pieces to the short piece of belt, and the other to the long piece.
Glue a riveted piece to each side of mask like so.
Cut slit into end of short piece.
I stupidly did not paint my strip brown before this step. I recommend that you do. Then super glue your leather together to keep buckle in place. If you’re feeling fancy you can use a rivet. But I hate rivets and rivets hate me.
On your long strip round one end. Also punch holes down its length, like a belt. Paint.
Cut out two leather pieces in this shape. Hole punch two holes like so. Paint.
Install rivets into holes. Glue one of these pieces to the short piece of belt, and the other to the long piece.
Glue a riveted piece to each side of mask like so.
Step 4: And Done!
Enjoy!