This explains how I made the Golden Stag mask for the finale of Head Over Heels, a film we were allowed to make for streaming (instead of the usual stage show) because of the Covid 19 Pandemic. (Last time to stream is 6/18/21-6/20/21!)
Materials:
- 99c Only Store gold Halloween mask with conveniently deer shaped eye holes
- Baseball cap from Dollar Tree
- A bolt of thin tissue lame sold for wedding decor use
- Hot glue gun & sticks
- Large plastic rhinestones
- Scraps of pool noodles
- Gold spray paint
- Bits of wire
- A roll of foam wire tie (ethafoam rod covered wire for garden ties).
Click into this gallery to see the full size step by step photos:
Beginning with a gold halloween mask mask from 99c only store, one adds a nose and jaw of bits of pool noodle with hot glue on low temp. 
Hot Glue on low setting is applied to the pool noodle to make nostrils 
The mask is glued to a backwards Dollar Tree baseball cap. Two strips of pool noodle, with wire inserted are glued to the cap. 
Bend the wire in the noodle slices to form a stable base for the horns. 
Glue and bend foam wire tie (Ethafoam with wire inside used as plant ties) like Rapiclip or a thicker version, to make the smaller prongs of the stag antlers. 
Continue adding and bending 
To get thicker prongs wrap two thicknesses of foam tie around each other in spirals. 
Make some thick prongs by wrapping for sturdier verticals. 
Glue them to the cap , and ad more foam wire tie loops. 
Grab the ends of the loops and twist. 
After twisting into sturdy spiral prongs, bend the prongs to shape. 
Cut small spikes of pool noodle and add to form thick straight prongs. 
Keep adding a twiddling [he prongs till a shape emerges that looks good to you. 
Photograph it against a contrasting background at all angles to be sure the silhouette is good from all directions. 
If it is not, keep adjusting until it is. 
Make sure it fits comfortably on your actor. In this case it had to fit over a ClearMask without knocking it off when the headdress was removed. 
Spray paint the portions of the mask that are not already gold. 
Dry. 
Add rhinestones 
Sew a simple, lightweight gold tissue lame cloak to the baseball cap (so you don’t damage the gold cape for future uses with hot glue).
The stag on screen in the finished film.
Mopsa carefully removes the mask headdress so it does not disturb Musidorus’ ClearMask.
The lightweight (also cheap) tissue lame makes the cape far less likely to disturb Musidorus’ ClearMask during the removal.
This particular section of the film was done in just one take!
Though the shot that immediately followed, a hand held swooping circular shot of Musidorus speech in a way that captures everyone around him in a circle reacting to his words, took lots of takes to get everything perfect.