The first challenge was a durable, relatively seem free mould, epoxy made that one possible so I was able to move on to the next issue - and that is how to sculpt something like this. Instead of a normall full face core mould, I went with one of the half face moulds - they're pretty much just a brow, nose and lips, it cuts off just in the middle of the lower lip, making this a viable solution since I could now free sculpt the underside of the tentacles.
From there it was a matter of designing how the mould would be made, again epoxy made this easier. My first concern was breathing, how trapped would the wearer's nose and mouth be? First thing was to start with a normal half core mould, I then added a mould from the nose to the bottom edge of the mould, leaving an open gap so the nose isn't really covered.
From there I did the main larger negative mould of the entire "front" of the piece and finally another piece for the underside of the mould - which is permanently attached. It was a bit of a chore demoulding the whole thing, I was a little worried it wouldn't work, but not only did it all work out, the pieces are pretty reasonably simple to make - although it's a large amount of foam, pretty much an entire regular batch of foam, which might normally yield 2-3 full faces, a couple ears and several pairs of horns.
Overall the piece works exactly liked I'd hoped. It's really easy to apply and has a really nice dramatic look to it that I wasn't totally confident would work once applied, but it as far as I' concerned it works perfectly.
If you're interesteed, it's up for sale, you can check it out on Etsy.
https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/637564354/the-flayer-prosthetic-made-to-order
