Q&A: Styrofoam Wig Heads

Questions regarding my projects and papier mache regularly fill my mailbox. In an effort to answer these questions and share information some of these questions will be regularly featured on this blog.

Jeremy wrote:

“I am creating a haunted bust, and I have the Platform/Pedastal done. I bought a wig head as a base for the head and I have no clue what to do wth it! Im not sure how to go about it and Im making a frankenstien bust. Will i paint it green or go with the grey/black/gold stone colours?I need help!”

Good question.

I’ve never used a Styrofoam for any of my projects but rather create most of my skulls from scratch using papier mache covered balloons. The closest I have come to using a Styrofoam wig head is using a plastic blucky skull as the armature.

My advice would be to browse Haunt Project or The Monster List for tutorials using Styrofoam wig heads.

Off the top of my head.

I would approach this project by carving out the eye sockets so they could accept eyeballs and add some material to the wig head to create the classic Frankenstein shape such as building up the boxy shaped forehead and brows.

Next I would apply papier mache clay and sculpt the details. I would also carve out the mouth of the Styrofoam wighead so that teeth can be added.

As far as the color scheme that’s pretty much up to you and depends on the effect you are trying to achieve. Stone colors would give you a classic bust scheme but using greens could give you a unique and stylized prop.

Experiment with paint.

Remember you can always repaint if your first attempt doesn’t cut it.

Stonewalled!

My Faux Stone Paint Technique



There are a lot of methods to painting faux stone and brick. A quick search on the internet will yield quite a few detailed tutorials that produce some impressive results. The technique is quite simple and produced some impressive results.

Materials:
White latex paint
Black latex paint
Roller or paintbrush
2 large spray bottles (available at dollar stores)
Small artist brush for painting mortar
Small 1” brush for painting highlights and shadows
Black marker or charcoal pencil
3 containers for mixing paint
3 stirring sticks

NOTE: The pieces being painted must be positioned flat on the ground to prevent the paint from running or dripping. We used 4’x 8’ pieces of paneling for the wall structure of our haunted house. For the purpose of this tutorial I will refer to the object being painted as “the wall.”

STEP ONE: Using brush or roller paint the wall with a coat of gray latex paint. Use a 50-50 mixture of black and white paint. Allow the paint to dry.

STEP TWO: Fill one spray bottle with a thinned mixture (about 1/3 paint to 2/3 water) of white latex paint. Fill the other bottle with a thinned mixture of black latex paint. The paint needs to be thin enough to be sprayed onto the wall. The goal is to create a splatter pattern of black and white paint. The end result is that the wall should look like a slab of granite. You can achieve this technique by using a brush to splatter the paint, but the spray bottle technique is quicker. Note: Using a very heavy splatter pattern will yield better results even if it seems too much at first. Let dry.

STEP THREE: Use a black marker or pencil to draw the stone outlines on your wall. Random patterns and varying distances between the stones will give a good result. No more than 1” space between the stones works well.

STEP FOUR: Using the small artist brush, fill in the gaps between the stones with black paint. This is the most tedious step, but a nice “clean” mortar between the rocks will yield a good result. Other techniques to paint the mortar will work, but painting by hand creates the most satisfying, solid and uniform paint job.

STEP FIVE: Using a diluted paint mixture again, about 1/3 paint to 2/3 water, add the shadows and highlight. The shadows use diluted black paint and the highlights use diluted white paint.
Decide which direction you want the light to appear to be coming from and proceed to paint the highlights with a small (about 1” brush). If your imaginary light source is coming from overhead, paint the highlights on the top of the stones. The white paint needs to be thin enough that it only lightens the gray paint and allows the speckles to show through.
Use the same technique to supply the shadows at the bottom of the stone. This is the coolest part of the paint job, because once the shadows and highlights are complete, the stones appear very three dimensional to the naked eye.

NOTES: I have used other techniques, such as painting the whole wall black, then use stencils to create the stone or bricks with the gray paint also works. This technique eliminates the tedious task of painting the mortar, but I still prefer the outlined technique.
Have fun and good luck!

-scott