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SabrePanther — Werewolf mask front view
Published: 2011-07-31 07:49:38 +0000 UTC; Views: 3818; Favourites: 44; Downloads: 92
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Description
wolf head front view... finally finished the hood and ears, still need to attach the velcro on the back, attach the tongue, and add black c loth on the inside. I'm rather pleased with how well the jaw moves but I just wish that the fur on the top jaw covered the teeth a bit better, but its too late to do anything about it now.Since this is my first attempt at making and furring a wolf head, I would welcome any thoughts, helpful tips, criticisms
EDIT: oh, and I forgot to mention that the eyes glow in the dark and the lips can be moved and pulled up to reveal the upper teeth and make a snarling expression
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Comments: 26
this is brilliant i love it! i'm a mask noob but im trying to make a light grey wolf mask do u have any suggestions on how to make them? (ps. my budget is lame and low 
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I would love to help
Warning: this will be one very long post....
First off I reccomdend making several drawings of that you want the mask to look like on your head and do a lot of research on wolves's head shapes. It will really help down the road
For the mask base I used paper mache to make the snout onto a $5 plastic mask that you can find at hobby lobby, along with a little duct tape and hot glue. I highly recommend buying a plastic foam head at hobby lobby to put the mask on while you are working. It will help make sure that the mask doesn't look too big on your head and one of my biggest pet peeves in fursuit heads are head that look ginormous compared to the rest of the body.
Secure the $5 mask to the foam head with some tape so it doesn't slide around. Then get some non-dry oil clay and make the snout and other wolfish features on the mask. Then apply several layers of paper mache over the clay, let it dry as completely as possible, remove it from the clay, take the clay off the mask, and then hot glue the paper mache snout onto the mask.
I then cut the whole mask into two pieces, the upper head and the lower jaw. I then put the hinges on them and used plastic utensils (I would recommend looking around for sturdy plastics and other materials to make the hinges out of and I'm still looking around for better alternatives) I know that another DA artist, Monoyosha who makes cheap hinges that you can buy on her website at [link] Tongues, noses, and jawsets are also available for a very reasonably price if you don't want to take the time to make them out of clay. But if you want to make them yourself, I would use sculpey clay. After the mask and jaws are completed, put a strong elastic band on the mask for a secure fit on your head. And put the mask every once in a to make sure it fits comfortably and take pictures to refer to later.
The trickiest part is making sure the wolf head looks proportionate and that the jaw opens and closes straightly and evenly or else it will be difficult to get the teeth to align and you will end up with a crooked mouth. So don't be afraid to take plenty of time in getting it right!
And for the eyes, I just used aquarium gems super-glued over a piece of colored paper and they work extraordinarily well! Wrap strips of black craft foam around the eyes to make the eyelids. I used black mesh for the tear ducts, you can find it in the sewing section at a craft store.
Once the mask base is perfected, its time to make a paper template for furring. Apply paper or plastic bags over the mask and the neck areas to make a tight fitting "skin" be sure to mark on the template which direction the fur is going. If you have furry pets, take note of which direction the fur is going on their face or refer to photos online. cut off the template and set aside.
The fur will be the most expensive part of the project but it will be worth it and you would have saved $ using the cheap alternatives for the mask base anyway. I recommend getting long-pile furs and also furs that have multi-colored hairs because they really add to the realism of the mask.
Use the template to cut out the shapes in the fur fabric, again paying close attention to the direction of the fur.
Carefully hot glue the fur pieces on the mask and try to make the edges of the pieces as nonvisable as possible, then sew on the rest of the neck furs, along with the velcro (or zipper) to close the neck fabrics. After this, its time to shave down the fur on the face. Again, refer to other animals to see in which areas the fur is shorter. In my case I used some sharp scissors but some other people use electronic razors.
Sorry for the long post but there is so much about mask making that its hard to cram it into a small amount of space. Also, I had studied other people's tutorials on mask making for help too and have a bunch of those in my favorites box and I reccommend you looking at those too. Look in my favorites under costume tutorials. Hope all of this helps and have fun with your mask making
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ahh wow thankyou SO MUCH! this is endlessly helpful 
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First attempt? Wow, this is awesome!
Just curious---where did you get the eyes? Are they glass?
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The eyes are made of round aquarium gems with a piece of paper with the pupil and other details drawn on it stuck to the back
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What is the base made of resin?
It looks so good makes me shiver x3
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its actually made out of a cheap $5 plastic mask, four plastic utensils, duct tape, and paper mache
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Aha thanks!
It is durable? 
Or heavy?
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it is very light, and its pretty durable, although I would not recommend just throwing it around or subjecting it to too much stress. For the paper mache, instead of using flour glue, I used craft glue to wet the newspaper, so that added some extra strength to it.
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Aha ok thanks for the response!
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i love it! great job for your first try! i would suggest doing a slight highlight around the nose to let that show up a tad better and possibly some shading on the toungue but aside from that i love it!
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thanks for faving them, and will definitely try the highlight and shading thx!
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I suggest making a new tongue, agreeing that it looks cartoonish. Pull up pictures of a taxidermy tongue, either relaxed or snarl, up to you.
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fortunately the tongue was actually pretty easy to make
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The outside looks really really cool, the teeth though look a little small and the tongue a little cartoonish :/ A line in the midle would help, and maybe a little coloring.
But nevertheless, it is a very good mask, I really like the fur! Which one did you use, if I may ask?
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thank you
And as for the fur... I used craft fur samples found that can be found at Joann's, Michaels, or Hobby lobby. Used two types of fur (the brand name escapes me at the moment...) one is 1/2 inch pile brown fur that is black at the base but lighter brown at the tips, and then the other fur is a longer 1 inch pile is also multi-colored.
And if I needed to blend or make tweaks in the color of the fur, I just did some drybrushing with some acryllic paint
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Neat, thank's for explanation
Also I made the upper ones, which are only seen when looking reeeeeally deep into the mouth, rather tiny.
Damn, since I'm from Germany, I won't be able to buy at any of these shops :/ Although I really miss Hobby Lobby from my time I spent in USA. Gosh, we do have big craft-shops over here, but not with as much inspiring stuff as you've got ^^.
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Ah... will try that next time. I think one of the reason's why I had trouble lining the teeth up was a problem with my hinges. Some of my hinges were sliding or bending a bit, changing the mouth position. Next time will try a studier version of my hinges. And for the craft fur, a lot of people order online too. A really good website with a large variety of furs is mendels.com, and if there are some furs that you are interested in, they can send 5 swatch samples for free!
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Thanks
Yea, I know the problem with the hinges. I've tried out different ones, soft ones so you can move the jaw freely never worked. Jaws moving when pushed downward, Jaws moving back with metalfeathers and rubberbands... Haven't found the for me cleanest way yet -_-
If you are interested, I have a vast collection of links about building realistic suits posted here. [link] It is in german, but when you use the google translation the most important things should be understandable. And most of the links lead to english-speaking sides anyways ^^
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wow, thats a lot of info regarding fursuits, am gonna have fun browsing thru them, many thanks!
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