How to make a Day of the Dead mask

Have you heard of the Mexican festival, the Day of the Dead? Watch and find out how to make an amazing Day of the Dead mask!

Instructions

Do the preparation task first. Then watch the video and do the exercises. Remember you can read the transcript at any time.

Hi, I'm Jessica Parker and you're watching 'Own It'. I'm an online special effects make-up artist and I taught myself these skills by watching a lot of really cool content on sites like YouTube and Instagram.

Today I'll be sharing with you a tutorial on how to create a really cool Day of the Dead mask for Halloween. I recommend doing this on something that you don't mind getting paint or glue on, and for this tutorial you will need: a plain mask from a craft store – the one I have here is cardboard – a set of brightly coloured paints and some brushes to use with them, a pack of gems in different colours and shapes, and some 3D paints to outline our skull design. If you need some design ideas, you can google 'Day of the Dead skull' and look through the different styles and patterns that come up.

If the mask you have is round like mine, you'll want to start by cutting out the sides, so that the shape is more like a skull. Then you can go in with a pencil, or pen if your mask is plastic, and draw on the design that you want. It can be as simple or as complicated as you like, and once you have your pattern guide drawn on, you can go in and start painting. I use black around the eyes, nose and mouth to mimic the look of a skull and then I use lots of different bright colours to fill in the rest of the pattern. You can use any colour anywhere you like. Once that's all painted and dry, you can go in with a black 3D-effect paint and outline all of the designs. I added some of this in gold and silver as well in a few places, and I also used the black for the swirl patterns that go all over the mask.

You'll then need to leave that to dry for a few hours or overnight if you can, and the last step is to add in all these different gems. You can add these wherever you like on the mask and you want to glue them down and leave those to dry.

And there you have it! Thanks for watching and remember you can get lots more inspiration for more amazing stuff you can do in the digital world on the Own It website. Happy Halloween!