Shaping the Leather - Now that the leather is attached to the molds, you begin to shape it.

According to the book we are using as our source material, this process is supposed to take up to six hours and once started it can't be stopped.

We are finding however, that this doesn't really seem to be the case.  It does make sense to not stop once you get started, but the amount of time needed to shape the leather is not nearly so long as six hours.  It seems really to only be taking from 1 to 3 hours.
 

We suspect that the more complex masks are the ones which are going to take the most time in shaping the leather.

That makes sense of course, but the real concern is that some of the characters features are extremely exaggerated and getting the leather to shape itself over those features is going to be extremely difficult.

Repeated soakings are probably going to be needed.
 
 
 

It is amazing how pliable the leather really does become however.

You really can shape the mask largly with just your hands.  The larger features on the character faces show up almost immediately and the real challenge seems to be that you have to work hard to make sure they stay in the leather.