For my concept, I wanted to do a full-face mask with a horse's head as my basis. I realize that the devil is supposed to be a goat, but personally I find horses to be extremely menacing.*The framework is corrugated cardboard hot-glued over a bust I received from an artist I went to school with that is both a beautifully crafted work of art and an extremely useful tool for mask making. It is slightly larger than life-sized, so anything I build on it fits comfortably on my admittedly oversized melon.
The teeth, for which I received the most positive comments, where thirty or so popsicle sticks hand-carved with a box cutter (kids, don't try that at home; I got a pair of jeans with a big slice in them and a gross story for making that mistake.) I then primed them with guesso and painted them with oils. The gums were built up from a few layers of rapidly applied hot glue. Originally I planned to paint the gums with nail polish, but it turns out that stuff doesn't cover very well. I wound up painting them as I did the teeth, but really carefully because the paint doesn't like to stick to the hot glue material.
After a certain amount of time (forever) the paint on the teeth dried, and after a few layers of liquin on the whole affair to gloss it up, I put some skin on. I built the substrate in a skeletal manner, so hopefully I wouldn't have to do a lot of modeling with the skin. For the skin, I used an old bed sheet attached to the substrate with a variety of different glues, then guessoed all over to both prime the surface for painting and basically cement the whole thing together with latex. I was not especially satisfied with how this portion turned out; The material was less forgiving than I had hoped, and it looks pretty poor on the edges of the mouth and the nose. Also featured here are the horns made from cardboard covered in electrical tape. Classy!
I begin painting the surface using oils. Up until this point I'd been waffling on either the classic red devil, or a more boney look like Frank Langella in Masters of the Universe, but I thought what 'what the hell' and went for red. I felt it was more dramatic.I made some attempt to disguise the weaknesses on the nose and mouth with the paint scheme, with mixed results. I emphasized the wrinkles that occurred, giving a more haggard appearance. The wrinkles were always intended, I was only displeased with areas that are more geometric, and so tried to obscure them with darker colors.
Everything all together for the first time. You can even tell that the paint is still wet. While I like the smooth transitions and intensity of color that oils can achieve, it was a very long painful wait for this thing to dry so I could try it on and run around.The jaw in this image doesn't looks so bad. The reason it looked so rough was that I got way too ambitious and wanted to the jaw to articulate. This was engineered into the final design, but the skin was too stiff and the tolerances on the substrate too close to allow significant movement. The result was an unresolved look with no kinetic effect to justify it, an error I could have rectified if I'd planned a fixed jaw. Hoisted by my own petard, blast!
Finally dry, I glue it to a helmet with a chinstrap and run around growling like I'm freaking nine.The horns are fun, because it makes me tall and therefore surprising and impressive to drunk people at a Halloween party. Not so impressive however, was the fact that I was unable to successfully fit through a standard door without undignified gymnastics. As long as I didn't try to move from one room to another, I was fine.
The mask, in its intended environment. Making this thing was a lot of work, and there was some times when I was disappointed with what I'd done, but it also resulted in two extremely satisfying experiences: One, coming down the stairs, encountering a kid tripping balls on mushrooms, and completely freaking out his universe. Two, dressing up like the devil and doing combat with a kid dressed as Captain America, an experience I'd recommend to anyone.Cheers!
*I attribute this to the movie "the Ring" and its portrayal of horses. I realize that this isn't everyone's favorite movie (though it is a favorite of mine) however, the way it informed my sense of horses as a concept wasn't really related to the movie itself. The horse imagery used in the movie instilled in me a sense of the horse as strangely human-like in a way that is tortured and servile, and straddles the uncanny valley as well. These concepts of para-humanity and horror are concepts I enjoy addressing, and so horses as a symbol of these senses appear periodically in my work.
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