Mossy Skull

$20 - $25 (based on 2024 prices)
Makes one skull

 

For 2024’s cemetery, I endeavored to create a series of props to elevate the graveyard’s theme. One of them was this mossy skull with mushrooms sprouting from its head. The prop turned out well and inspired me to apply the same technique to a large planter filled with similar heads.

• One human-size plastic skull
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat brown*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in grasshopper*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat gray*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in hunter green*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in neon green*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in olive*
• One adhesive moss sheet (roughly 12” x 12”)
• One 4 oz. bottle of all-purpose tacky glue*
• One 0.12 lbs. bag of mixed moss
• Two artificial palm leaves with wire stems
• Two artificial mushrooms with wire stems
  

1. Thoroughly wash and dry the skull, removing any decorative elements to give the paint a clean surface to adhere to. For aesthetic purposes, I chose to remove the jaw, but you can incorporate it into your version. Following this, use a stippling brush to build up layers of grasshopper, hunter green, neon green, and olive paint, working from dark to light and trying not to overthink the application (a random pattern will look more natural).

2. For further depth, stipple brown and gray paint onto the skull’s surface. Like the first step, you want a random application to achieve an organic appearance. If either color becomes too heavy, you can use some of the green hues to dial it back. 

3. Cut the moss sheet into several random patterns, ensuring there are no straight edges. Then, starting at the base of the skull, adhere them to its surface. Concentrate their placement on locations where growth would naturally occur, such as inside the openings of the eyes and along the crown of the head. If you cannot find adhesive moss sheets, cover small areas of the skull with glue and press loose moss into the paste.

4. Accent the skull with clusters of moss. As with step three, position them in spots where this greenery would typically grow and utilize a variety of colors to give the prop more visual interest.

5. Use a 1/8 bit to drill three holes into the skull: one below the zygomatic arch and two in the crown. Insert the stems for the leaves into the hole under the zygomatic arch and the wire supports for the mushrooms into the holes in the crown, gluing all of the elements in place. Although I used store-bought mushrooms to save time, you can fashion your own with modeling claw molded around a steel wire for support.

6. I kept the prop relatively simple, but you can embellish it further with additional details, like a cluster of insects crawling across its surface.

*You will not use the entire bottle’s content for this project.