The Scarlet Masque

Here’s a progress report on the mask-making project that I first posted about a couple of weeks ago.

It ended up taking a while for me to get back to the project because, honestly, I think I might be trying to do too many different things at once with my creativity quest. But that’s another post for later. Back to the mask-making…

To summarize, I used an instant paper-mache product called Celluclay and formed it over a cheap plastic masquerade mask that I bought at Michael’s. I followed the instructions pretty rigorously, except that I went ahead and added the Celluclay right over the mask instead of putting a layer of cling-wrap over the plastic first. I did this on purpose because I intended to leave the clay on the plastic permanently. Well, Celluclay is supposed to dry in a day or two, but after a week of waiting, there were several parts of the mask that were not dry. I realized it was because 1. I put the Celluclay on really thick – too thick, and 2. I realized that Celluclay sitting up against solid plastic will take ridiculously long to dry because no air is getting to it. Oops.

What I decided to do was to try to get the Celluclay off the plastic form while keeping my mask as intact as possible, so that the non-dry parts could get air.

That was a mistake. Imagine if you will what happens when you try to rip something that is partially dry and partially wet off of a form that – when dry – it is designed to stick to. No matter how carefully you try to do it, what you get is something like this …

Yeah, oops.

But I’m sooo glad this happened. Best creative thing to happen all week. Because 1. screwing this up really taught me a lot about how to work with Celluclay, and 2. Frankly, in its own way, those broken shards of mask actually look pretty kick-ass. Imagine those pieces painted up to look like old distressed crimson-colored metal and partially buried in some rocky sand or dirt.

Do you see it? That’s a thematic provocation right there. It’s a story. I’ve accidentally gone from making a bit of wall decor to creating a visual story-hook for The Scarlet Masque. Maybe even the cover of the rpg, should it ever come to that.

So, this ‘failed’ first attempt is sitting on my work counter waiting to be further transformed into an accidental masterpiece.

Meanwhile, I’ve got a second (and currently intact) mask drying on the work counter, too. I’ll share more about that one in future posts. I’m also itching to try to make one out of leather, and I’ve got some cool ideas about decorating the cheap plastic mask as well.

See what I mean about working on too much stuff at once? If you’re counting, that’s FOUR mask projects at one time. And that’s just masks, it doesn’t count the paintings, mandalas, and digital work I’m trying to do as well. Clearly I’m taking too much on at once and not focusing properly on any of it. But like I wrote earlier, that really ought to be its own post.

Step 1: Celluclay over a generic plastic face mold.

After letting my bag of mixed Celluclay sit untouched in the fridge for over a week, this weekend I finally decided to try to make my first venetian mask. I formed the stuff over a generic plastic face mold, then spent about an hour smoothing it around, filling in gaps, and adding some bulk to the nose and brows to customize the basic shape. Now it’s sitting on my oven drying – a process that’ll take about 24 hours.

Celluclay is a form of retail paper mache that behaves a lot like clay, then hardens into a solid form that can be sanded and carved and cut to a nice smooth finish, then painted or decorated. This is the first time I’ve worked with anything like Celluclay, and I think I like it, although I am definitely going to need to get a few masks under my belt before I feel like I have a good sense of how to work it and mold it to my satisfaction. This feels like a pretty good first try, though. I’ve made masquerade masks for theatre productions before, but it was over 15 years ago and back then we used different materials.

I’ll keep taking pictures and sharing what this process is like. I plan to make several masks in the future and I want to keep a record of what it was like to create the very first one.

I’ve been amazingly prolific over the past few evenings with the project I hinted at in the post entitled “What’s All THIS, Then?” and I’ve been having a lot of fun doing it. What began as a vague idea of my own custom-optimized roleplaying setting of swashbuckling romance, intrigue, piracy, and tricorn-hatted adventure has blossomed into a full concept.

Below are a few basic things I want to share up-front. More details will probably come later on the new Website I’m building to house the project.

• I’m doing this for me – as my own creative outlet, because it is percolating inside me and won’t stop bugging me until I’ve made it manifest in some form outside of my mind.
• This is a worldbuilding project that I plan to use for roleplaying campaigns. But I HAVE NO INTENTION of publishing, marketing, promoting, or selling this as a product. I will make this thing, then I will hopefully play it with my friends, and if it is any good then I’ll toss it into the aether for other folks to play if so desired.
• I’m proceeding on the notion that the system I’ll use for this project will be FATE. I imagine I’ll grab appropriate FATE concepts from Diaspora, Dresden Files, Starblazers, SOTC, whatever works to support the kind of cinematic swashbuckling intrigue vibe I want for this. But at this point, I’m working on color, flavor, setting, etc. And since I’m not going to try to publish this thing or sell it to anybody, I don’t feel any need to worry about focused design. I’m making a game for me and my friends to have fun with.
• I’m sort of going old-school with this project relative to my own evolving notions of rpg-setting design. What I mean is, these days I’m much more likely to socket into collaborative setting creation. I tend to avoid the sort of designs that results in what Judd calls “museum games”. Nevertheless, here I am making up what will probably be a fairly detailed setting all by myself, my own way. I can’t help you reconcile why I’d be doing this at this point, but I am. I want to, so I am.
• Because I’m not planning to publish this or promote it, I’m not going to fill up this blog or any other forum with lots of info-dumping. I will use a Website to act as a journal/wiki/gallery, but I won’t be forcing any of it down anyone’s throats. Most of the things I write from here on out will be on the project site, not here on the Monkey.
• Because I’m not planning to publish this thing, I can unapologetically and openly admit that I’m stealing a lot of ideas and concepts from several of my favorite genre sources – most particularly I’ll be stealing from Scott Lynch’s Gentleman Bastards world – and also from Joe Abercrombie’s world, and from previous rpgs like 7th Sea.
• This will be a world that bears a fairly overt evocation of Venetian carnival masks, tricorns and rapiers, alchemy, traveling theatre troupes, piracy, and the number 7.

So there.

I now have a solid working-title: Tales of the Scarlet Masque. Below is an as-yet unfinished map. The islands and main locales are done – I just need to start naming things, but that will come after some research.

Enjoy. You can see a much bigger image if you click on this one: