This weekend is HiBearnation (think big circuit party / convention for hairy homos) – part of the weekend is “FurBall” on Sunday. This year’s theme is “Masquerade”.

So – Early Monday Morning I got a wild hair to do my own mask rather than try to find and buy one.

What would follow would be a 48-hour exercise in hyper-fous-gitter-gone.

Early rough prototype fashioned out of paper.

 

Then I realized I really don’t know what the hell I’m doing – so called my friend John who’s a theatrical costume maker along with his partner Lou.

After fumbling trying to explain what I was doing and get advice he finally said “Oh good lord, just come to the shop and let’s figure it out.”

… so we did…. well.. more like they did… I kinda just sat around and played useless art director.

Finally got something that seemed to work.

That evening I took the craft paper template John and Lou was able to create from my crappy mock-up and example pics and scanned it into the computer and created an illustrator file.

Cleaned up the edges and addressed some technicals like straps, fastening points, etc.

**insert STRANGE field trip to downtown leather warehouse in scary part of city, entirely maned by old Vientmanese ladies who didnt’ speak a lot of English…**

Tuesday night then headed to my other friend Randy’s basement leather workshop.

 

voila… homemade leather wolf masquerade mask:

It’s definitely a solid prototype – but I’d want to tweak the template more before attempting another. Suppose I could team up with John and Randy and sell these on Esty … but we all have day-jobs….

Maybe December’s personal project will be to refine the design and make a few more and give to friends.
I’m digging making small runs of things for friends …. in this age of “FaceBook friend” thumb-ups, pokes and other detached bullshit – there’s something nice about personal, exclusive, hand-craft goodies to tell someone “hey… I like you and I’m happy you’re my (real) friend.”

not everything needs to be turned for buck.