The photo above shows the ceramic form that was used for this project. (As you can see, poor Courtney's face has been used and abused through several art projects over the past decade.)

Lay a wet piece of paper over the form. I let mine soak in the sink for about an hour to make sure that the fibers were really pliable, which allows you to get more detail from the mold. Press the paper into all of the nooks and crannies of the face. From here, you can allow the paper to dry, or continue on. I allowed the paper to dry a bit. Because My form was made of fired ceramic, it pulled most of the water away from the paper rather quickly.

Begin applying the hot glue across the face. Don’t do it in entire areas (like in my Cheap Skulls project), rather apply it in thin stringy “veins” until the basic form takes place. Let some of the veins dry before going over them a second time with more veins. Make sure not to make them all go in the same direction. They shouldn’t be straight either, you should weave a web of crisscrossing veins across the entire face. Continue this until you have the whole face covered. Allow the glue to cool down.

Remove the paper and glue mask from the form. From here, you could begin decorating or continue on with the face as I did. I chose to add other pieces of “flesh” because I had originally hade this project hung from the ceiling, stretched out with fishing hooks (ala the Clive Barker Hellraiser movies). If you wish to add additional flesh as I did, cut out the triangular shapes from paper and glue them to the bottom of the mask.

Cover the paper triangles in the same method that you did the face, and connect them by running veins from the triangles up onto the face. Allow the glue to cool.

Note: The illustration above shows a a painted prop, which doesn't actually happen until step 6. I am using this photo to demonstrate how the hot glue "veins" run from the paper triangles and onto the face, creating a seamless look.

Turn the entire mask over and do the same treatment for the inside. Since my mask was hanging and could be viewed from either side, this step was necessary. If your mask will be hanging on the wall or such, you can skip this entire step.

Time to decorate this ugly thing. I painted the entire mask with apple barrel acrylic paint in medium flesh. Then I went back in with a smaller brush and painted individual veins assorted green, red and bluish color.

Now is the time to get down to the detailed work. Since all of the paint was flat, I wanted to make some of the upper veins kind of translucent. In order to do this, run some more veins across the entire mask and make them all squiggly and random. After they have dried, color these new veins with magic marker. The markers will color them but still allow you to partially see what is underneath them. In my opinion, these see-through veins are what really make it creepy.

To finish the project and give it a more “wet and slimy” look, I sprayed the whole thing down with a few coats of some high gloss overcoat paint.