Rising New Moon Studios

    T he Nightmare Before Christmas Jack Skellington Created October 2009   Items Made: Jacket, Trousers, Tie. A LOT went into the costume.  It was one that I've wanted to make forever but I could never find a fabric that I thought suitable... and I really didn't want to hand paint all of those pinstripes onto every piece of fabric.   Luckily I came across this awesome uneven pinstripe in Dark Charcoal from an online fabric store.  It was on clearance and I bought all they had... 11 yards. The base of the pattern came from a Burda pattern for a women's suit/tuxedo.  It took a lot of altering to change the shape from a normal woman's figure to a man trying to emulate that of a disproportionate skeleton puppet.  I also had to change the collar from a shawl collar to notched collar.  Also the tails took a bit of work to make look tattered but tailored all at the same time.  The tie uses stiff felt for the wings and t...

HI EVERYBODY!!! So I know it's been awhile since I've worked on this, but I had All-con costumes to work on and a boatload of exams for Anatomy (Which I still have 4 more in that class that we have yet to take) so I have been a little distracted. But I've done some work as you can see in the above picture. I bought a palm sander to help speed up the sanding and I did an initial sanding on the mask. This brought out the low spots and thin areas. Which as you can see I've gone back and filled in with more paper clay. I've also gone in and worked the eye area... smoothing out and reinforcing the inner edges and such. They were pretty thin and delicate. Now they're a little more sturdy and I don't have to worry about them breaking. Lastly, I've added in the teeth to match the inspiration photos. When they dry, I'll cut out the "open" part of the mouth. Since the part inside the mouth is part of the mask, I'm only going to c...

But I have been working on things... I just haven't had any really good progress pics to show ya. Jack is STILL drying. This humidity is not helpful at all. However, he was dry enough to take off of the foil/foam head mold--which I did. Then I went on the inside and evened out the paperclay in there... filling in the shallow spots and scraping down the thick parts. I attempted sanding some of the mask but it was really uneven, so today I went and applied a thin coat of paperclay to hopefully even out the surface a bit. When that dries I'll go back to sanding. Does anyone know if you can pu t paperclay in the oven on a really low heat for a bit? I have GOT to get this mask dry. I'm thinking this weekend, I'll film a how-to video on the whole process I've used so far. In Turducken news. I've completed Chicken #1 down to the finishing. She just needs a zipper in the back and her boa sewn on. Here are a few shots. This design uses Mc...

But.... I... AM.... AWESOME!!! This is about 3 hours of sculpting... maybe more, maybe less. The top pick is my sculpt, obviously, and the bottom is my inspiration. I am over the moon with how well this turned out!!! I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a 5 lb. bag of paper clay... and this used about one and half pounds... I still have to add in the teeth. And then once it dries, cut out the mouth and eyes and sand and touch up... lather, rinse, repeat. I kept the eyes and the mouth as big as possible for visibility and breathablilty. I'm thinking that I can back the openings with black chiffon. It's matte so will absorb light, it's thin enough to see through when held up to your face, but you can't see into it... if that makes sense. I really hope I can have this ready by All-con. Stay tuned for more to come!!! Jason Skellington

all is lost... Where was I? Find a deep cave to hide in.... In a million years they'll find me... Only dust... and a plaque... that reads 'Here lies poor old Jack'!!! For those of you not in the know, that's a couple of verses from Nightmare Before Christmas. (The Best Movie EVER!) Anyway, I just wanted to share with you the news that I started sculpting my new mask for Jack. I've never been in love with my vinyl Halloween mask. So here's a little play by play... I started with a male Styrofoam wig head that I cut laterally down the seam lines of the head. (if you look closely at one of those heads, you'll see what I mean. And also, kudos for me for using my fancy Anatomical terms). Then I took the anterior section (aka the front) and covered it saran wrap... just to keep all the little stryo beads from getting EVERYWHERE. I don't have a picture, but it took an effort to get it cut in half. I wish I had a band saw, but I just used a big se...

alright, so I've been meaning to do this forever and just haven't done it.. but now with the costuming and such moving along, it's time I started. Actually, I set this up back in March of 2010 but never used it. In fact I've literally just spent the last hour trying to remember how to get back into this account. So, what's new with RNMS? Well, this year -- all 13 days of it -- nothing major. I just took on a commission for Disney's the Red Queen, so expect to see that soon. Also, I'm going to attempt to make a new mask for Jack Skellington. I'm thinking bottom left corner, but Top left got a lot of votes on facebook. Alright, so it's 3 am and I have to be at work at 8 so I'm gonna try to sleep. Look forward to more posts and stuff. Queen of Hearts and King of Pumpkins, Jason