This report is aimed at providing some information on the kigurumi mask making process. However not every single detail is included as being extremely specific can mean a very very lengthy report. Nevertheless, this report will provide a fairly detailed explanation on how I made the the mask as well as pictures for better understanding. What are included in this report are tasks which are performed at each stage to produce the mask; it does not however covers much on the techniques used to accomplish the necessary tasks. Please contact me if you have any enquiries and I'll be glad to respond to them. At the same time, anyone who has tried or are also trying to produce such masks are strongly welcomed to give your comments and suggestions. Let us all learn something together.

The mask which is used to perform cosplay on this website is the second mask which I have made. The first mask served as a protoype for me to get a general idea of how to attain a better head and facial form.

The prototype has a gaping smiling mouth hehe, the prototype head form is on the right of the prototype mask.

Stage 1~
The head forms are sculpted completely by hand on paper clay bought from any local popular bookstore. As the head form should be slightly larger than the actual head size of the cosplayer, you can imagine that alot of paper clay has to be used. From the picture right at the bottom of this page with me holding the mask, you can tell how large the head form is. It is a huge heavy block of clay or stone whichever you prefer calling it and it weighs to my estimation about 15kg odd for the second head form. That was about 10 packets of paper clay. I saved a little on paper clay by using a styrofoam wig holder as the core.

The second head form is a lot bigger than the prototype and it is also a full "head form" instead of a half "head form" which the prototype was casted from. To cast the face from the head form, it has to first be thoroughly cleaned and have a layer of lacquer applied to it. Spray can type or brush type are both fine, it doesn't matter at this stage of time. I keep the head form covered up when not working on it to prevent it from getting in contact with dirt and other possible stuff which may soil it. Of course it has to be completely dried before you should cover it up.

The covered up completed head form.

Stage 2~
After the head form was dried, sanded to remove major buffs and then lacquered, casting is ready to begin. Most of the art materials I bought are obtained from ART FRIEND at Bras Brasah complex(In Singapore). I must say they have a very complete library of tools and materials I needed but at the same time, are a little expensive to own. After testing and failing with the prototype using two different materials suitable to obtain a cast of the head form, I've finally found a perfect medium. It is casting bandage, the same ones which are used in the past (in the past because nowadays pastic casts are used) to casts a broken limb on a person. ART FRIEND sells these and apparently the product recomments itself for making masks out of it. I saw that and got an idea, not to make the mask out of it, but instead to capture the facial form using it. It works extremely well for that purpose.

Just water and casting bandage and it can capture any form and stays tough and rigid.

Before applying the casting bandages to the head form, a layer of oil on the head form is necessary for easy removal of the cast. It may be risky not to put any as u might pull the nose off together with the cast. The head form is only made of paper clay and not the tougher cellulite clay which we will talk about later. The oil which is recommended on the package is vaseline. I do not have that at the moment and I also think its not entirely necessary to use that, so I used moisturising oil instead. It worked the same. The casting bandage are first cut into strips to allow ease of covering the entire head form's every concave and convex corners. It is then applied strip by strip after dipping each strip in water then onto the mask.

Strips of casting bandage can capture the features of the head form very well and it has slight toughness since it is made out of nylon and clay.

The strips are only applied up to half the face from the top so as that it can be removed later. See the picture below to know what I mean.


Stage 3~
It takes only a few minutes to a couple of hours for the casting bandage ot completely dry and harden. It is then time to remove the cast from the head form. It is important to remove the cast carefully as it can be quite tightly attached to the head form. Pull out from all sides, once again very carefully. If the head form is smooth enough and a layer of oil has been applied between the head form and the cast, it should not be too difficult to remove the cast.
The removed cast will maintain the exact shape of the head form and it is the concave of the headform~ see picture below.

Casting bandages captues the head form features with impressive results.

The casting bandage is completed from here. To my surprise, it is rather water resistance after it has dried. Next we will have to start applying the actual material which the mask will be made of inside the cast. After some trial and error and some luck, the prefered material for the actual mask is cellulite paper clay.

Side tracking a little here. Kigurumi fans would probably know that in Japan, the casts and the masks are all made out of FIBRE-GLASS REINFORCED POLYESTER (FRP). Those will result in a very tough plastic cast and a very tough plastic mask as a result. However in Singapore, FRP usage requires a license and only fancy car parts dealers and water sport workshops can afford and legitimately obtain this license. As a result, I have to put material engineering into practise and searched for another hopefully as similiar as possible material to substitute for this mask, otherwise the project cannot proceed. Thus cellulite paper clay was found, and its properties are an amazement to me. It's not only light, its extremely light, maybe not as much as FRP masks but it is still very light. Secondly it's incredibly hard and tough, its not suppose to be a surprise to anyone since it is already mentioned on the packaging, but no one would have expected this level of hardness and toughness. It's very comfortable with drilling, buffing, sawing anything even on a thin layer. And therefore I have found the perfect substitute for FRP with satisfactory results. Moreover, FRP is expensive. The masks it makes has to be expensive as well as a result. Online stores in Japan are offering SGD$1000 to SGD$2000 for one Kigurumi mask. I will be able to produce 10 of these masks at the price of each mask they sell. Even with their higher quality and material properties, it is still outrageous.

Stage 4~
So now we fill a thin layer (about 1cm) of cellulite paper clay into the cast. The cellulite clays dries rather quickly as well, about half a day and it is hard. This time, removing the cast from the mask is alot easier, but actually takes longer. There is no need to care about the casting bandage anymore, so it is fine to rip it off the mask strip by strip. The casting bandages don't costs too much so its fine to destroy it and buy more again if u want to make another cast of the head form. As no oil can be applied between the surfaces, the two mediums stick very well to one another.. But remember, the cellulite clay is super tough and hard, I ripped the casting bandages off the mask hard and rough and the masks stays intack. After the casting bandages are removed from the mask, the surface of the mask will be quite rough from the casting clay left over by the casting bandage. However, this clay is brittle compared to the mask's clay so use a sand paper and sand away the roughnes. The inside of the mask with a 1cm thick cellulite clay would look like in the picture below.

Holes are drilled into the eyes using an electric drill and ears are attached to the mask.

After smoothing out the mask, the features will stand out better and its actually quite good looking. Almost like the finished mask of a female face. You can say that your mask is successfully produced once you have reach this stage. Then attach the ears and its ready for lacquering. I made the ears using styrofoam. I carve them out using a pen knife two simple ear designs one for each side. Note that the ears on each side are laterally inverted and are not the same. I attached the ears onto the mask using silicon sealant. Wait until it is dry and then start lacquering.

Stage 5~
Apply multiple thin coats of lacquer to obtain a thick coat. Do not apply a thick coat right at the start, save your lacquer. i must have applied at least 10 layers of lacquer. The lacquer will help cover up the fine uneveness of the mask even after sanding and also any small ditches on the mask. It also protects the clay in within and gives a very smooth feel, look and shine on the mask. Water base lacquer is a good option since the paint wihch I used later are oil based.

Multiple coats cover up small holes which will become invisible after painting.

Stage 6~
The lacquer dries extremely fast in a matter of minutes. But just leave it dry for about an hour and you can start painting. Initially I thought that a white base coat will be best for a fair skin coloured mask. Then I realised that I have ran out of white base and is left with the grey coloured base coat. After using it, I then realised that the grey base coat is very useful as it tells me the areas on the mask that I have yet covered with flesh tone paint if it is still grey.

Base coating the mask before adding colour

As my air brush is actually designed for painting model kits, it is a little too small to paint such a huge mask. I took a long time and my air compressor became very hot. Not a problem usually. Anyway, the thing to note here is to make sure that you have mixed enough paint to cover the whole head. One bottle of GUNZE oil based paint isn't enough for my mask so I had to mix two bottle's worth of paint. Same for base coat and skin coat.

Applying skin colour until none of the grey can be seen

Especially for the skin coat it is important to mix enough paint to finish the whole face. I didn't thought I'll run out of skin tone paint at first but when it did, it took me a while to mix the paint to the right tone again. I use Character Flesh 111 and some pink mixed together to obtain a redder flesh tone.

Stage 7~
We are one step closer to completing the mask. After the skin tone has dried, it is time to draw on the features.
Some Kigurumi masks makers paste plastic eyelashes on the mask while some prefer to paint them on. Whichever option is fine. I decided to draw the eyelashes on using paint. This is the most intricate part of the entire mask making process. My advice to you when drawing these features on is to use a stencil wherever you can.. You have to create the stencil yourself of course. Just cut the shape out from a thin plastic sheet. Place the stencil over the part u want to paint and then air brush over that area. Alot of work here depends on your personal creativity and artistic intuition to do a good job, the problem is mainly to prevent smudging and spraying beyond the stencil. Masking tape and unwanted paper come in very handy at this time. The facial features which I have spray painted on include the eyebrows, eyelashes and lipstick.

How the facial features looked like on my mask after painting them on. Satisfied, but I'll tryy to do better next time.

After the facial features have been painted on and completely dried. it is time to seal the paint job in lacquer. It is VERY IMPORTANT to use water based lacquer at this stage otherwise you WILL SMUDGE all the hard work painted features all over the face at the first stroke. Oil is a solvent for the paint we used so be sure to use a water based lacquer. Apply about 3 to 5 coats and it is done. You may apply on the inside of the mask as well if you need to. I did that earlier already.

Stage 8~
What is left now are the eyes. I cut unwanted plastic sheets into the shape I require and used them as eyes. I painted the eyes using stencils once again and relying alot on creativity and my idea of the final outcome. The eyes are opaque after you paint on them so you need to cut two SMALL slits for you to view though. Remember to consider very carefully how you want the eyes to look like before cutting your slits. Also, cut the slits before painting and be sure that the area around the slit is painted black in colour so that the slit is invisible.The last step on painting the eye was applying a layer of clear gloss over the eyes. Make sure the paint is dried before doing that. After the eyes have been painted and the paint has dried, I attached the eyes to the mask from behind. Once again I use silicon sealant as it provides a very strong and durable hold on the eyes.

With the eyes attached, the forehead is finally complete

Stage 9~
At this stage, the mask can be considered almost complete. All that is left is the wig as well as the pading inside the mask for the wearer's comfort. In order not to let the mask be loose when wearing it, sponge padding has to be stuck in the back. I placed more padding near the top as I want the mask raised as high as possible to reveal as much neck as possible. This will have the effect of making the character look more slender and taller. The adhesive I use is SELLEY'S SUPER STRONG MULTI GRIP GENERAL PURPOSE GLUE.

Padding can be attached inside the mask in whichever fashion that you feel necessary.

Here are the pictures comparing the size of the mask with respect to my body.

As you can see, it is quite big.

Stage 10~
Once the padding is in place a back cover is required. It is necessary to hold the mask firmly to your head. I cut a piece of latex zippers to the right size and used the same adhesive to attach the back cover. The back cover is stretchy and I gave it very little slack so that it closes tightly behind my head. From the picture below you can see the latex zipper and that it is stretchy.

The back cover closes nicely behind the wearer's head

It is not necessary to cover the entire back of the mask with the back cover, about half the back will do as your neck needs some space too. I would say the back cover coming down to slightly below the ears will be just perfect.

Stage 11~
After the back cover is in place, it is time to attach the wig. As I have two wigs, I intend to make them interchangable. So I used velcro strips to attach the wig to the forehead of the mask. Firstly I use the same glue to attach velcro strips to 3 parts on the front of the mask as shown below. For those who do not know what velcro strips are, it is those stick on things with a furry side and a hooked side made of plastic. See the pictures below.

Velcro strips are attached to the mask and will be covered completely when the wig is put on.

It is very important here that I need to put the wig on the mask before actually attaching the wig to find the optimum position for the wig. The wig cannot be too high or too low and once the velcro strips are attached, it is impossible to remove without destroying the mask.

Then I do the same with the wig. I placed velcro strips right at the front and furthest sides of the wig on positions which I want to fit on the mask. The GENERAL PURPOSE MULTI GRIP glue is so strong it can hold the velcro to the fabric of the wig quite well to my satisfactory.

The velcro strip positions on the underside of the wig

The glue takes a little longer to fasten completely to the fabric of the wig. Give it a little time and use it only after the next day to be safe. The velcro strength can be quite strong so you to not want to rip out the strips before they are completely stuck.

Leave the two wigs lying to allow the glue to dry

To maintain the quality of the wigs, it is necessary to comb it before and after every use and keep them at full length in a long bag or hanging. This way, the wig will look nice everytime you put it on your kigurumi mask.

And with that, once the wig is attached to the mask, the kigurumi mask is finished totally. Put it on for a trial and get accustomed to how you should wear it to make it look its best. The rest will be left to the wearers own creativity and imagination.

Wonders of mask and costume combination.

I hope this report has been informative and at the same time interesting to read.
Have fun~

END