Materials:

Be prepared to improvise things together to make this work on a relatively cheap budget but must haves include

• 1) Plaster - You can use Plaster of Paris (found at most hardware stores) if you want but I would suggest using Ultra Cal 30, especially if you're a beginner. It's a little more expensive but it's easier to work with and is supposed to make a better product. You can find it on the internet or at sculpting stores. I'd get 50lbs to be safe but it I bought bulk (100lbs) which came to around 60 dollars at the closest store.
• 2) Latex - This is what the mask is made of and the more you have the easier the process is. Technically I think you could do it with a half of a galleon but it was significantly easier have the whole galleon. Less latex means resorting to the slush technique, that's no fun. BE CAREFUL WHEN BUYING LATEX. You need to get mask making latex and not any other kind. Other kinds of latex aren't meant to be worn or worked with and can do dangerous things like kill you. Also you can buy white latex and colour it later with paint or save yourself the trouble and buy precoloured black latex. I'd suggest this one, it's what I used and it's already called 'Black Bat' the price was middle ground from this supplier Link.
• 3) Plaster Strips/Bandages - not be confused with plaster. These have many names but it's basically plaster lined up in strip form and again it's meant for masks/costumes/medical. I got mine at a craft store. See image farther down.
• 4) Clay: Get lots more than you think you'll need, 20 pounds should be good. You don't need to get the good stuff. I got twenty pounds of clay for twenty dollars.
• 5) Styrofoam ball: either one big one just smaller than your head or a bunch of tiny ones. Try Dollarama if you want cheap.
• 6) Some kind of wooden support: this is basically a replacement neck. You need something sturdy, not hollow, that's smaller than your neck and can act as a base for your sculpt. I used a round birdhouse from Dollarama. You can also get some wood and nail something together. Improvise.
• 7) Spray. I strongly recommend Kyrlon brand "matte finish"
• 8) Burlap. It’s cheap, buy a bunch.
• 9) Towels, garbage bags, buckets, water, rope/ties/bungeecord/straps, sculpting tools (i used a butter knife and the end of paintbrushes), screwdriver, hammer, fan, blowdryer, marker, petroleum jelly (very important), cling wrap, tape
• 10) Reference photo - lots, make sure you know what you're sculpting

Process:

I set out to make this cowl and probably had about twenty reference photos of different angles.

You can go straight to step three if you've decided that a generic sized styrofoam head will fit your needs. Instead of going to all the trouble of building an exact copy of your head you can just sculpt the cowl right on top of a styrofoam one.

Step 1: Plaster Strips (easier with a friend)

To begin you need to make a copy of your head. You'll want to cover any hair on your head (not eyebrows) with cling wrap and tape it to your face, getting the fit as tight as possible. then take the Petroleum jelly and lightly cover your entire face in it, being careful not to leave globs. Pay special attention to any hair, like eyebrows, that you wish to keep.

Now take the plaster strip roll and cut it up into smaller pieces, have a bunch of different sizes roughly ten cm in length to twenty. Dip them one at a time into warm water, slid off the excess water with your fingers and then place the strip across your face. You’ll want to cover your face(eyes included), neck, ears and the front part of your hair. Leave a hole open where your nostrils are so that you can breath. You’ll want to layer the plaster at least 3 strips thick everywhere and the strips should be on a variety of angles. This is very very messy and painful if you do wrong (aka forget the jelly DON"T FORGET THE JELLY i speak from experience)

Wait for the plaster to dry, you can speed this up with a blow dryer. You’ll know it’s dry when it starts peeling a way on it’s own. Remove the mask, be careful, this can sometimes be a little painful. Take some extra plaster and cover up the nose hole and any noticeably weak spots. Put it aside. Now repeat the process with the back of your head, ensuring that there will be some overlap between the two pieces on all sides.

NOTE: You can try doing the whole head at oncebut be careful. You can’t put strips that far down the back of your head (about halfway) or you’ll never get it off. Getting it off as a whole piece is difficult as it is but it can be done if you’re short on strips. Use common sense

Now both pieces should be semi-dry but still damp (it will take about 24hrs to dry entirely). Stick both sides on your head at the same time making sure that one overlaps the other. Take a marker and trace the point where the top half ends onto the half of the mask that’s on the bottom. Remove both sides. Cut along the line you just created. Put both back on your head and ensure that now you have a (more or less) overlap-less mask of your whole head. Allow plaster to dry (~24hrs).

Step 2: Clay Sculpt of Your Head - there were no good pics for this, sorry

Take your dry plaster mask and clay and set up somewhere where you can work messily for a decent amount of time. Nowhere really hot, humid or cold. Line the plaster halves with cling wrap and tape it down. Take the clay and begin packing it into the inside of the FACE side of the plaster mask. You want the clay at least a cm thick all over the face mask side. Push firmly to ensure it’s in all the groves (the nose takes a little work) but no so hard as to destroy the plaster. Try not to have any cracks or air bubbles. Now fill in the nose and build up the eyes and chin. Take the base you created and insert it into the neck area, trying to ensure it will be roughly centered when both half are on. Build up clay around it. You’ll want the ‘peg’ part to go fairly far into the sculpture. (If you’re using 1 big Styrofoam ball make sure that the top of the base is actually inside the Styrofoam).

• Option 1: Take your large Styrofoam ball and press it firmly into the clay you just packed into the mask. Then grab the back of the head and ensure it still fits into its place (if it doesn’t remove some clay and or cut the ball). Put the back aside again. Fill in all the holes around and BENEATH the ball with clay until you end up with the front half of the mask entirely filled with clay and part of the Styrofoam ball sticking out. Now pack the back half 1 cm thick and put it on the ball, trying to line up all the edges. You MUST fill in all the holes and air pockets.
• Option 2: Push in a small Styrofoam ball, surround with clay. Repeat. You eventually want to fill then entire half of the head this way. Make sure there are no cracks, empty spaces or air bubbles. Then take the back of the head plaster, fill it with clay 3 cm thick all over. Keep building up the front half with clay and Styrofoam until it roughly appears the same size as the back half. Push the back half on firmly.

Push everything together firmly again. Push again. Shove more clay up the bottom to ensure there are absolutely no empty spaces. Push again. Set the whole thing upright so it’s standing on the base. Now carefully remove the plaster mask. Try not to disturb the clay. The nose and bits around the jawline are particularly tricky. Once you get both off you’ll be left with a clay head. You’ll probably need to shape/smooth it out a little (I bent my nose when taking off my plaster). Just use your hands and if necessary a little bit of water. It’s okay if it’s not all that smooth, you’ll be covering it soon. Congrats, you now have an exact copy of your head.

Step 3: Adding the Mask

You’re welcome to start this immediately or you can wait a little bit. Just DON’T LET THE CLAY DRY OUT. The basic principle is that you’re going to build a mask/cowl on top of your clay head. Add more clay where necessary and shape is as you go. Be careful not to accidentally change the head itself. Just build the mask you want on top of it. Any bumps (that you probably won’t even notice when sculpting) will show up in the final mask. This is an exact copy of what it’s going to look like so take your time and make it awesome.

I can’t tell you much about how to technically sculpt as I just winged it. However you should note that the more edges you have the harder it is cast later, especially big nooks and crannies. Also if you need to cut/shape the clay in large chunks I found a bit of wire to be helpful. Add some water to the surface when you’re ready to smooth it out at the end. I’d Google sculpting tips. At the end of the sculpting you should have a perfect life sized version of what you want the mask to look like. Let it dry for a day.

Then spray it with the Krylon spray. Once you spray it with this stuff you CAN NOT (should not) change anything about the sculpture itself. If you see something you don’t like now, too bad. Let the spray dry for AT LEAST 24 hours. Make sure it’s a nice even coat, don’t let it drip.

Step 4: Plaster

This is the scary part. Once you start you CAN NOT stop and you’re committed. You mess up here and everything starts from scratch. If you need a really really comprehensive guide I’d suggest the Monster Makers Mask Making Guide, its super helpful.

Take your burlap and cut it into strips of various sizes. You’ll want a bucket nearby with water to clean your hands – seriously necessary.

Pick one side of the mask to do first. You want to use the remaining clay to build a ‘wall’ at least an inch high all the way from the bottom of the neck, over the head and to the other side. Basically like it’s cutting the head in half with the face on one side and the back of the head on the other. Make sure there are no gaps between the bottom of the ‘wall’ and the head itself. Cushion the wrong side with towels and lay the head so that the side you want to plaster first is facing up. Roll three superball sized balls of clay and push them onto the wall so that they resemble half circles evenly spaced out. Make sure they’re facing the side you want to plaster first. Then take strips of clay at least a cm thick and squish these into the clay.

IMPORTANT: these strips must end halfway down the wall, they cannot touch the head itself. Also make sure they hang out over the edge of the wall and into the air.

Cover the side you’re not working on with cling wrap. Now we start with the plaster.

You want to get another bucket and fill it about an inch deep with warm water. Then get the plaster (Ultra cal or Paris) and begin sprinkling it into the water. You want to stop when the surface of the water starts to resemble a dried up pond bed. Sorry but this is mostly guess work, no real measurements. It can take a while and more plaster than you’d think. Once you’ve got the ‘bottom of a river bed’ look get your hands in there and start mixing it up until there are absolutely no more lumps or clumps and the plaster gets harder to swirl. There should be some real resistance.

Get a paintbrush and quickly coat only the side of the mask you decided to work on. Move quickly but make sure you get all the little cracks and crevices. Now cover that with a layer at least a few cm thick, don’t use the paintbrush for this, just get your hands in there. When you first start the plaster will be runny, don’t worry it will thicken up. Use all the plaster in the bucket on this first plaster layer. Make sure you cover the wall too. Beware when plaster starts to harden/dry to gets really really hot, don’t let it stay on your hands too long without either submerging them back in the liquid plaster or in the clean water.

Move quickly and whip up another batch of plaster. Dip your burlap in it and begin making another layer. Just like the plaster mask make sure there’s lots of overlap in many directions. Then cover it all up with some plaster with no burlap. You should only need these two batches. Give it some time to cool. You can tell when the plaster is ‘done’ because it will heat up and then cool off; also it will feel like stone. Better to give it too much time then not enough.

Then flip it over so that the clay side is facing you again. Take off the cling wrap and carefully remove the clay wall. You should be left with a clay head half surrounded by plaster. When you remove the wall there should be a plaster version that comes up just as high. Make sure you dig out the clay from the balls BUT LEAVE THE CLAY STRIPS. If you accidentally remove them get more clay and but them back. Take petroleum jelly and spread a thin layer over the plaster ‘wall’ part. No globs but make sure everything’s covered. Fix the clay head if you need to. Then repeat all the same plaster steps we did before. Make sure your plaster goes right up the plaster wall. Now let it sit for six hours (approximate).

Take the whole thing (careful it’s heavy) outside or into a garage. Now dig out the clay strips. You’ll probably need a screw driver. Now take the screw driver, wedge it into one the openings from the strips and try to pry the two halves apart. This took me almost an hour. It depends on your strength, how much jelly you used (too much is bad too) and just luck. You’ll probably have to work at it for a while, rotate between all the openings you made with the strips. Be patience. It will crack open eventually.

When it finally does you need to remove everything that was the clay head and just throw it out. Make sure you get all the clay. Don’t use anything to get it out that might scratch the plaster inside. Your hands are the safest bet but if you must, use a wooden spoon. Then clean it out with water, and then clean it again. The cleaner the better. Take a look at where the clay balls were. One side of the ‘wall’ should have round protrusions, the other round divots. These should lock into each other and help prevent your mold (that’s what you just made) from sliding around. Let the mold sit for 24 hours.

Now you’ve got to find a way to hold the two halves together. Apparently there’s some kind of professional strap for this but if you don’t have one (as I didn’t) just get all the rope and bungee cord you can find. Note that by rope I don’t mean string, I mean rope. Push the mold back together and then tie it as tightly as possible. You’ll probably need to loop it around many many times and on many angles. You need some that go over the bottom too. Small bungee cords work great. Be creative. Leave room to pour in and out of the neck hole.

What should be noted in these next two pictures is the results of the balls and strips you pressed into your clay retaining wall. Yours NEED to look something like this.

Once you’ve got it together and it’s not sliding around you’ll notice that there’s still a small seam on the inside where the two halves meet. Get some clay and very thinly spread it over this crack. You shouldn’t be able to see the crack but when you run your finger over the bottom of the inside of the mold you shouldn’t be able to feel a bump or dip. Make sure you go all the way up the sides.

Step 5: Latex

Warning: Latex smells awful and is semi-noxious, make sure you do this in a well ventilated area and technically you should wear a mask or respirator.

Get your latex and if it’s not precoloured use google and figure out how to colour it now. You can apparently also paint it after. I know nothing about this. Then proceed. Lay down a sheet you hate because this can get messy. First you’ll need to thin your latex down, for the whole galleon I added about half a drinking glass of water. Then mix it in.

Little latex: If you only have a little bit of latex what you have to do is pour it all into the mould and then twist, turn and jiggle the mould until everything is covered in latex. When everything is covered pour what’s left out. Hit it with a blow dryer for ten minutes and then pour it back in again and repeat. Do this until either you’re out of latex or your think the mask is big enough. I didn’t do this, so I’d suggest google. It’s called slush latex casting.

Medium to lots of latex: Probably about a half galleon to a galleon. Pour all the latex in (unless you’ve got too much, then just pour and stop at the very top). If your latex doesn’t go quite as high as you like get a spoon and splash it up higher. Hit and jiggle the mould to remove air bubbles. Always make the latex go higher than you’d like, you can trim it later. Let the latex sit in there for ten minutes. Then come back, tilt the mould so that the latex hits the right height on one side. Leave it for ten minutes. Come back and tilt it so the latex is the right height on a different side. Repeat for a third side. Every so often during this period splash latex onto whatever isn’t currently submerged in latex.

Pour all the latex back into the container, while pouring try to rotate the mould so the flow comes out from all sides of the neck. This can be awkward to do. Now you’ve got to keep holding it there. Latex can take a while to drain and you don’t want any pooling if you can help it. Make sure you shake the mould a little to get all the pools out. I repeat POOLS ARE BAD. You may need to hold it over the container for ten minutes. Be careful with the cowl ‘ears’.

Now put the mould in front of a big fan for fifteen minutes. You should rotate the mould in this time period so that different sides are on the top and bottom.

Repeat this process of pouring in the latex at least 3 times. It depends on what you want the mask for and how thick you want it. Mine was for wearing so I did it 4 times.

After you’ve finished for the last time leave it in front of the fan for a few more hours. Rotating every so often.

Now leave it for 24 hours. Use this time to recover your sense of smell.

Step 6: Removal

Make sure you waited the full 24 hours. Touch your latex to make sure it feels rubbery, look inside and touch GENTLY to ensure it’s not wet. Now take baby powder and sprinkle it all over the inside of the mould, the more the better. This will keep the mask from sticking to itself.

Here’s the fun part. Carefully begin to peel the mask back from the plaster. Take your time! It would be a shame to ruin it now as the beginning edge is probably thinner than the bottom. Move slowly and don’t force anything. Once you’ve pulled a little back sprinkle some baby powder between the mould and mask. Keep doing this periodically. Watch out for any ‘undercut areas’ like the nose, eyes and especially the cowl ears. Beware the ears. You can’t really peel them out. Just get everything first, wiggle your finger around in there and pull gently. BE PATIENT.

Now pull the whole thing out slowly. Congratulations. You have a grimy dirty latex mask that will suffocate you if you put it on. Immediately stuff it with plastic bags. If you don’t it will eventually lose it’s shape. The bag stuffing is crucial. Now leave it alone for 24 hours.

Step 7: Final Touches

Alright you can take the bags out. Baby powder will probably fly everywhere. Clean it gently with water. Clean it again. And again. Soap is not good for it. Now it’s fairly simple, get scissors and cut out everything you don’t want. Paint it if you’d like. I used Plasti Dip on mine but apparently acrylic paint works too (again you’ll need to google).

Note: paint will not remove and blemishes or holes. There are methods for buffing off bumps and filling in holes if you need them but they require specific equipment.

You should be good to go, wear and enjoy!

TADA!

You can even see a little of the armor I made too (if interested I can do a how to for that too. It's loosely the same). And as for the double mask, it works as a quick fix if you ever feel like switching with batgirl you're modelling (or disguising your face).