The commissions I received were for a magpie, a snowy owl, and a rat design. After doing a number of sketches and having the client's approval, I started work on the masks. Here they are at the tooled stage:
...and shaped...
...and dyed.
I try to choose a dye color that will be closest to the color I will be painting the mask. In this case, the magpie will be dark and the background will be very dark blue. For the rats, the background will be black and the rats themselves will be light blue. Sometimes I will use a complimentary color for the dye, such as with leaf masks. I feel having a reddish-brown base gives a better and more natural green.
I will post final photos of these masks once they are painted. Painting them is the best part!
