How To Make A Paper-Mache Skull

You can look up how to do paper mache in general in a million places. I use a little salt in some water and add flour to make a thin paste. Then I soak strips of newspaper in that, and apply them. But this isn't about that. It's about this:

Blow a balloon up about the size of your head, and cut out a piece of cardboard roughly like shown. A cereal box or whatever. Get some duct tape. Or other tape. Probably doesn't matter. You're going to make a kind of tent out of the cardboard, where one side of the tent is tangent to the balloon.

Duct tape this to the balloon. It's convenient to tape it over the knot. It should look a bit like this but honestly the details don't matter.

A conveniently sized bowl to put the thing in/on will help keep it from sticking to everything. Layer on strips of newspaper over the tented cardboard (this is the "jaw") and the main part of the skull. You'll leave a good sized area on the back/bottom open, through, so don't cover everything. You'll want to get your hands into the interior of the skull later, so leave yourself a nice opening.

Let dry, repeat. Four or five layers is probably enough structure to move on to the next step.

Which is to draw on a face. Just rough it out. You're going to form ridges and whatnot.

To make a ridge, take a long strip of newspaper and soak it in paste. Then twist it into a sort of rope. Dampen the skull along whatever line you want the ridge to follow, then press the rope onto that line. The ropes get mushy and can be shaped, and laid end-to-end or overlapped or whatever. You can be pretty slapdash.

I've done rough brow ridges, some ridges looping over the temples, the nose, and some lumps on the cheeks, here.

While it's still wet, cover with a layer of strips to meld it thoroughly to the skull's surface.

Next up, eye sockets. This is easily the most fun part. It's gross, sticky, and fun. After your skull has dried, using a very sharp knife cut an X into each of the eye holes, all the way through. If you have not popped and removed the balloon yet, this will definitely pop it. Probably a good idea to try to free the skull from the balloon a little before popping it. Cut away any balloon remains.

Cutting the X in each eye creates 4 triangular flaps. While gross and fun, the process has yet to get sticky. More fun awaits.

Form up two balls of aluminum foil, it doesn't matter if they're densely packed or not. Pretty tight, not not rock hard, is fine. They should be of a size to fit through the eye holes, but just barely. Flatten one side so they'll sit up nicely.

Now lay strips of paste-soaked newspaper across one of the balls, in all directions. Several layers. 4? 5?

Now pick this sticky object up, holding it at the bottom, sticky strips of newspaper upwards. Mold the paper to the ball a bit as you hold it. Now JAM IT INTO THE SKULL'S EYE. Push that molded sticky half-ball of newspaper strips into the middle of the X you cut earlier, and shove it through. The bottom surface of your aluminum ball should be slightly below the level of the skull's surface.

The ends of the newspaper strips are all over the place. Smooth them down over the skull's facial surface, the brow ridges, nose, etc. Then do the other eye. The result looks like this:

Inside the skull, it looks like this. The four triangular flaps are kind of hanging out.

Smooth the flaps down over the aluminum foil balls, adding some paste as necessary. Cover the whole thing in a layer of two more of newspaper strips, to meld the whole to the interior surface of the skull.

Let it dry for a bit, at least a few hours, before you pry the aluminium balls out of the eye sockets. My wife loves this part. It feels very very nasty, especially if things are still a bit damp.

At this point the edge of your skull probably looks like this, since it's just edges of newspaper. Probably a good idea to finish that edge with pasted newspaper strips wrapping from one side to the other. Also, adding more layers of newspaper overall as you work is generally a good idea. You'll find that the initial five layers or so is a bit flimsy, although it makes it easier to work and shape the thing.

While the skull is still pretty thin, I cave in the temples a bit, which breaks up the laminated layers and creates a soft spot, but improves the shape of the skull to be more skull-ish.

Adding more layers of paste-soaked paper inside and out re-wets the broken laminate, and allows it to re-set into the new shape, as well as adding strength to the skull overall.

I usually add a couple structural ridges to the interior about this time, using the same method as I did for the facial ridges above.

At this point there's still teeth to sculpt, and the various facial ridges can probably be detailed a little better as well.

Soak up some newspaper in hot water for a while, then drain and shred the paper as fine as possible. A little newspaper goes a long way. A tablespoon or two of shredded paper is probably all you need for a single skull. Add a little salt, and sufficient flour (and add water back in if necessary) to make a fairly smooth mud. Wet down your skull a little anywhere you want to add mud, and have at it.

The mud dries fairly slowly, and will appreciate attention you give it to re-assert any sculpting you've done as it dries. So just rough shaping when it's really wet, and then finer detail as it dries and sets over the next several hours. Just go touch up the teeth whenever you remember to.

When the mud is dried, I cover with another layer of strips.

At this point the nose hole still needs to be cut out, while will expose raw cut edges, and probably break up the laminate a little. Wrapping those edges in more paste-soaked paper will re-set things and clean up the edges, of course.

Let it dry out really thoroughly, and then paint with acrylic paints! Waterproof with a suitable product if desired.