Steampunk gask mask

I am reasonably satisfied with the gilding results.   Not perfect, but the surfaces I’m gilding are irregular and require repeated touchups.  The copper mask looks better than I had hoped.  I replaced the flat plastic eye pieces with strong lenses (taken from zoom lenses).  It looks quite cool to wear, especially how it magnifies the eyes.  It also looks cool the way it distorts what’s in the distance.

I’m in the process of attaching a backing support to it.  After a few experiments, I’m using some very think copper wire on the back that I’ve bent into a 3 dimensional “outline” of the edge of the mask (it doesn’t show, but I like that it’s copper too)  and poking stitches through the mask and tying it on with thin copper wire.  I’ve bent the wire into a fairly triangular shape as I like how it makes the mask resemble an animal with the tabs on top being horns and ears.

Once that’s done, I’ll figure out how to hang it, and then how to suspend text behind the eyes – probably will solder/braze some wire together for the supports.  One unfortunate thing is that by mounting it on the wall, the optical effects of the lenses are reduced to magnifying a dark region.  However, because I chose strong lenses, I’ll be able to suspend text very close to the lens. This will allow more light to get in, and also prevent you from looking in one eye and seeing the text for the other.