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Discussion Starter · #1 ·
I'd like to make a zombie puppet (like this) for next year and have been searching for a good mask to use as the base. Has anyone tried filling a latex mask up with spray foam (expanding foam) or had success with it? I'd like to the mouth to be able to be opened and closed so it could be "eating" the wearer.

Thanks for your thoughts!
 

· Scared Silly
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You'll want a soft foam for that. Since you don't have the mask yet, you could get one directly from a maskmaker and request that they fill it with soft polyfoam. That way they'll do the foam in the mold and it won't distort the shape. Alternately, if you need to go cheap, you could probably carve foam rubber into the right shapes and glue it in a mask
 

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goodness gracious that seems like a lot of work. I think I would spray great stuff on a wig head and shape that approximately to the mask. Paint it black when fully cured. If needed, cut the mask up the back side to insure a good fit and glue it back together once it's on.
 

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I've filled whole head masks with Great Stuff numbers of times, but the faces are static (even if the prop isn't). I developed a method that works well for me --Simple, no mixing, no brushing, costs <2 bucks to do a mask.
I tape over any holes and fill any protruding features first. Once they set, I give the mask a little spray of water and do a shallow coating of the entire inside and let that set. If I want the head just as-is, I water-spray again, put a partially-inflated balloon in, and fill around it with the spray foam. The balloon will offer less resistance to expansion than will the already-set layers of foam, so there's no distortion. It stays light-weight and you can do several masks with a single can of foam. If I want to adapt it later to a body form, the inside will be hollow, which offers multiple possible attachment methods. If I want the mask-head to go on a mannequin or a frame, I tape a crumpled wad of newspaper in the center and stick a length of 1" PVC pipe inside the mask from the top of the head to the "neck", sticking out a few inches. Then I foam it in, making sure the PVC stays at the angle I want. Again, the crumpled newspaper takes up some of the expansion (not as efficiently as a balloon, but I've had no trouble), but I make sure the pipe's cemented in well.
When it's done, the PVC can be trimmed. I slide the pipe that's in the head down over a dowel I've put in the neck of the mannequin or body form, making the mask-heads easily interchangeable. A hole and a cotter pin can keep the filled head from turning if that's an issue, but sometimes, as with the Spider Hill zombie, slight head turning is an advantage.
 

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Thanks doto - this is what I was thinking of too. I tried this, and it worked well for me. I did several layers of the Gorilla Glue mixture then several more in and around a styro head using GS crack filler. The combo seemed to work well together. I'd show the head, but someone decided they needed it more than me.... HM
 
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