Mask the Second

So I decided to take a break from making things for Christmas and just paint another of the masks I had waiting.  The theme I went with was a vague fire influence. Originally it was going to be all black and gold, but having painted one half... I think it looks better like this :)

It will need varnish or something - the black keeps coming off weirdly. But in terms of the design i think i'm pretty happy. It was super quick and easy to do too! Painted entirely with Posca paint markers again of course.

So yeah, you can see the couple of white speckles on the black which is where the black hasn't 'stuck' properly. I guess if I was doing this completely properly, I would paint the mask with a white base coat first. But that's a lot of hassle for a practise design really.

This was my first time using this particular 3d paint for the lines too. The one I usually use stays rounded as it dries, unlike this. I'm not sure if i like this new paint as much, but it worked and was a LOT easier to draw smooth lines with

In Summary:

I still love painting masks
I am really pleased with the design
I need to look into getting clear varnish asap
I have many ideas for other masks now!
Posca paint markers are still the best thing ever

Venetian Mask

So I went to Venice in the summer. And loved it. Which is unsurprising as I have wanted to go since I was 12 years old and first read City of Masks. Which is still an amazing book.

Anyways. I decided while I was there that I would try and learn how to make pretty masks in the same style as the ones i saw when I was there. And that is what I have done. I bought a basic mask with no prettiness to it and made it pretty. One day I might learn how to make the basic mask too. But I suspect the only way to do that at an affordable cost it so make several million of them at once in a factory. So for now... not gonna happen!

I have two versions and I would like people to tell me which they prefer

The one with silver/pearl is the original, then I painted gold over the detailing for a more traditional colour pairing. I think I prefer the original though

In the future I intend to be a bit more adventurous and stick interesting things onto it in true Venetian style. But for now just painted prettily. I have a plan for a Harlequin inspired one that i'll be working on once I have all the paints I need. This was mostly a test run to make sure my techniques worked how I thought they would

I really like curlicues, and practise drawing them a lot which turned out to work well because it means I now have a very steady hand for them, which was important here. The design was come up with as it went along so the side shown above is a bit less neat than the side below, because after one half I had gotten enough practise to do it better

Really I was very impressed by how pretty this came out looking. Though there is stuff I could have done better, of course.

I used gold acrylic paint over the detailing and while I think it works alright, the pearly colour did work better I think. Serves me right for trusting tradition over my own unerring grasp of colour matching I guess!

In Summary

These are quick and fun to make, if you ignore the several days worth of drying time.

They also come out looking very pretty indeed.

This week I will get the paint for the harlequin mask and see if that works just as well.

I still dislike gold as a colour. Not sure if that will ever stop being true...

Please, let me know which mask you prefer - is it just me not liking gold or does the pearl actually work better?