Mask psychedelia

Making of the Elephant mask

I've shown you the masks I built for Round the Outside music video. I also want to show you how I actually made the elephant mask. It was an interesting piece to work with and a challenge. I knew it was going to be guite big and heavy. It had to be durable and sit tightly on the actors head so that they would be able to dance. Also the trunk had to be made so that it could be hooked to a smoke machine. Jeremias also wanted it to curve upwards so he could easily shoot the smoke coming out. So there was quite a few things that I had to consider when building this. Luckily it turned out great with a bit of testing. 

This is the first sketch I made and which Tuomas and Jeremias approved.

I drew this again in the right scale and cut it out to test the proportions. It's always a bit hard to evaluate how the thing will look like as it gets more three-dimensional. You'll easily make the mask too big when testing with a flat paper model. I had to modify the proportions of the sketch quite a bit. The faceplate is widened and ears were made smaller.

I cut the base of the mask out of very thick and hard cardboard. This is the kind of stuff that's very hard to cut with scissors or a knife. I had to switch to a small saw at one point. The good thing about cardboard is that its cheap and easier to handle than most materials. It wont be durable though unless you glue it in layers and coat it with something waterproof.

I also made a frame from metal which keeps everything together. My main concern was the trunk because it was going to take on some serious beating in the dance scenes. It had to be attached so that it wouldn't come off even if you swing it around or bumped into something with it.

The base of the trunk is actually rubber tubing from an old waching machine. The eye holes and tusks are made of the same tubing. Tusks are covered with layers of gauze and nylon for a soft edged look.

At this point I nicknamed him Frankenstein's Elephant for all the metal and screws sticking out of his face.  Here's the base leather getting glued and the shapes of his face fabricated.

And the trunk curved to it's final position. It could be adjusted later on by bending the metal.

Test assembly with the trunk fabric and ears. Nothing is fixed to their place yet so I could change the positioning of things if needed. It's very important to see all the pieces together before doing anything irreversible.

The trunk and ears were filled with finnfoam, gauze and different types of foam rubber. The trunk fabric was glued to the base. The same thing was done to the ears and shapes on the face.

We're almost done here! Except for the painting and rigging. Designing and painting the markings was the most stressfull stage of making this mask. It's a thing you have to get right at the first try. The worst case scenario was that I'd ruin everything with one bad stroke of a brush. Thats why I did a huge amount of testing with separate pieces of fabric before actually starting to paint. 

Tuomas had a specific vision about the markings and I send him different suggestions and examples of what it could look like. We ended up doing these rough brush strokes that form geometric patterns rather than symbols or lettering.

When the style was decided on all I had to do was to paint and attach a couple of starps at back. And here it is ready for wearing.

Masks on Round the Outside

It's finally published!

This is a music video for Karriem Riggins directed by Tuomas Vauhkonen and Jeremias Nieminen. I was asked to help with the masks. I built two masks and modified a headdress I made earlier. I really enjoyed this project dispite the tight schedule we had. The result is pretty crazy. I especially love how the elephant mask turned out. It actually works with the smoke and all!

Be sure to watch this full screen!

TURO

I finally got a proper photo of the monster mask as it was in the final movie. Turo V. is coming out this spring :)

Photo by Juho Tanskanen

Monster make up test

It might be just a bit too early to publish this but I can't help myself. We did a first test make up of a monster called Turo today. This was to note any problems we might have with the prosthetics and make up. And there were quite a few things to attend to. He's still missing a fore head piece and some teeth. The hair will be trimmed, the appliance will be toned to a more realistic color, mouth will be made smaller, the appliance as a whole needs to be made thiner so that it will attach to the skin properly. So there's lots of things to do. Still after this test shoot I'm much more confident that we'll get there eventually. I'm so exited right now.

Monster teaser

I hate the fact that I haven't been able to update lately. It's not like I haven't been doing stuff. I've been working on five projects at the same time. They're all still in progress so I have nothing much to upload yet. I should probably try to focus on one project at a time to get things done. It's not like I must work on two cosplays simultaneously.

Anyway, here's a teaser of yet another monster mask. The back of his head is on a mold and shouders and hands are on the way. It's the first time I'm casting silicone and this mask is a second cast. The first one went horribly wrong. Since then I've learned to be quite carefull with this stuff cause I definately don't want to rub uncured silicone off of a mold ever again. Yeah.

Crouching Tiger, Twisted Dragon

Monster in the making part 2

He's starting to look like a moster. This is the first picture of the head worth showing cause he was so ridiculous at first. I'm thinking of posting those pics later though just to show you how something so stupid turned out something great.

 

The head in progress. Lots of make up work to do.

It's a model for his nose and mouth