Phantom of the Opera Jewelry Box

Masquerade...

Paper faces on parade

Masquerade!

Hide your face so the world will never find you...

In this Instructable I will demonstrate how to make a jewelry box inspired by the music box from the Phantom of the Opera.

Materials:

• Oven-bake clay
• Small or medium wooden box
• Aluminum foil
• Wire
• Yarn or thick thread
• Tiny gemstones

Tools:

• Super glue
• Sculpting tools

To begin, we need to make an armature out of wire. To do this, shape one strand into the shape of two legs, as shown in the images. Then add another wire for the body. Use your box to shape the legs into the correct sitting position.

To give the armature strength and to decrease the amount of clay used, wrap the armature in aluminum foil. Make sure to pack it together tight, or it will start to come off when you add clay later.

When you're satisfied with the position of the armature, you can begin to add the clay. Gently smush a thin layer over the armature, making sure to cover all exposed foil.

Next, poke another longer wire into the torso, pushing it all the way through to create two arms, one on either side. Wrap these in foil as before and cover with clay. Finally, attach a ball of foil to a wire and stick it into the top of the torso for the head, again covering with clay.

To make the monkey's head, add a triangle shape to the top of the head and smooth it together. This will be the monkey's hair. Add two smaller triangles onto either side of the head where the cheeks are.

To make the face, smush a small sphere onto the front for the snout. Then roll out some wormy-dealies and make upper eyelids and lower eyelids. For the ears, smush two small spheres into flattened ovals, then using a sculpting tool trace the inner ear design. Attach the ears to the sides of the face above the cheeks.

For the nose, make two small slits at the top of the snout. Then using a round sculpting tool, shape it into two nostrils as shown in the pictures. Add two tiny balls to the eye sockets, and carve a mouth below the nose.

Finally, using a sharp tool, score the hair in with upward strokes to give it a furry texture.

For the feet, squish two spheres into flattened spheres. Then cut four slits on the edge, creating five fingers. Gently roll each chunk between your fingers, making them nice and round. Then attach these to the bottom of the legs.

Repeat this step for the hands, making them slightly longer and thinner than the feet. Attach the hands to the ends of the arms, in a position that we can add cymbals to them later.

First, we need to carve the fur. To do this, use a ball-tipped tool or a silicon shaper to trace wavy lines over the surface of the clay, covering the arms and legs.

To make the monkey's golden belt, start with a flattened piece of clay. Cut it to the desired belt shape, then add the details. Make three small shallow holes on each side of the belt. Then, in the center make one more hole, and surround it with a flowery/star design as shown in the pictures above. Attach the belt to the monkey.

To make his Persian robes, flatten out a sheet of clay. It should be fairly thin. Cut it to a shape slightly resembling a vest, then wrap it around the torso and continue shaping until you're happy with the look.

For the cymbals, make two flat circles. Attach these to each hand with a small strap over the hand.

When the monkey is done, bake it in the oven, following the baking instructions on the clay's packaging. Let it cool completely.

To make the box the monkey is sitting on, cover the top with clay. You could also just stick real velvet onto the top, but I didn't have any on hand, so I just made this out of clay as well. When the top is covered, use a very stiff-bristled paintbrush to stab it and make tiny dots on the surface. This will later give it a velvety texture.

For the legs of the box, shape four rectangular prisms and attach them to each corner of the underside of your box. Then cut them in half, creating triangular legs as shown in the pictures above.

Bake the box in the oven, again following the clay's baking instructions.

Using acrylic paint, cover the entire box in a base coat of black paint. When this has dried completely, lightly brush some red onto the top cover. Follow this with a very gentle dry brush of white. Dry brushing is done by wiping most of the paint off of your brush onto a paper towel, then gently brushing it over the surface. This will bring out the texture and make it look realistic.

To make the golden filigree on the box, I used regular old yarn. Dip the yarn into gold paint, making sure it is all covered. Then let it dry completely. Using superglue, border the box with the gold yarn as shown in the pictures above. On the sides, wind it up and down the side to create a lacey pattern.

Start by painting the whole thing black. When this has dried completely, paint the chest, face, and hair dark brown. Paint the furry parts, the arms and legs, with a light brown. Then paint the robes dark blue, adding a gold trim. Paint the belt gold and the eyes black. Finally, the cymbals are gold with brown straps.

To finish, glue tiny green and red gemstones onto the belt as shown above.

When all the paint is dry, glue the monkey onto the top of the box and viola!

A collector's piece indeed...

Every detail exactly as she said...

She often spoke of you, my friend...

Your velvet lining, and your figurine of lead...

Will you still play, when all the rest of us are dead?