How to build a full head Night Ninja mask using paper mache

I built a night ninja mask using paper mache and crafting felt/foam/tulle.

It started off with a punch balloon covered with a lot of newspaper and a 1:1 flour/water paste.

Then I rolled up a piece of coroplast from a campaign sign and made a “crown” out of it, which was glued to the inside of the shell. (After being covered in the material from a scrap towel to make it slightly comfortable.) I used hot glue and expanding foam to lock it in place inside the shell.

After cutting out an area to look through, I hot glued 10 layers of tulle over the hole and then covered the entire shell with navy crafting felt using hotglue.

I cut the facial features out of thin crafting foam and hot glued them on top of the felt (being careful to let the hot glue cool enough so that the foam wouldn’t melt….)

And then I added an off-the-shelf inflatable man suit. The only modification I made was to defeat the elastic around the neck, so that the suit didn’t fully inflate, and was constantly blowing air up my neck into the full head mask. The constant cooling breeze worked out very well, and I plan on incorporating fans into any other head coverings I make.

The costume was a big hit in the 3-5 year old set. I heard a lot of kids explaining to their parents/grandparents/older-siblings who the character was. And of course, I got to hang out with Owlette and CatBoy (also from PJ Masks).