I need my piñata to have a face this time. I am not exactly a great artist, so I could use some pointers (or better yet, step-by-step instructions!) on how to do that effectively and somewhat realistically. Thank you!
Answer from Piñata Boy
That’s a great question — I only wish I had a great answer for you. I’ve made very few human face piñatas, and when I have I was always going for more of a cartoon look than a realistic one. On the Jimmy Kimmel Live page you can see how I made some large human head piñatas using thin cardboard to basically create a cylinder and then add a nose and shape the chin. If you can disguise the cylinder with more decoration (like the Lil Wayne piñata) it can come out pretty well, but if you don’t have a lot of decoration to work with (like the Jimmy Kimmel piñata), it’s not going to be very realistic. I made the Medusa head using balloons, but that one also doesn’t have the contours of a real face.
There’s a paper-folding technique called Pepakura that can be used to create a more detailed topography of a human face. The results look like this Uncle Sam piñata that was uploaded by Ramona Brown on the Show Us Yours page. Pepakura is actually the name of the software program used to create the paper designs, but the work has come to mean the technique itself as well.
You can always make a face sculpture by creating a face mold out of some type of material and laying papier mâché onto it. If you’re making a piñata with a life-size human face instead of a giant face, you may be able to make a mold out of a wig stand or perhaps a cheap Halloween-type mask from a party store. Balloons or thin cardboard can then be used to create the back of the head.
I wish I had a better answer for you, but I have always gone for a more cartoonish look when making human head piñatas because it’s hard to capture a realistic human face in a piñata. Good luck!