NickyD
New Member
Hi everyone. I wanted to share the Donnie Darko Frank mask I've been working on this past year.
Here's a look at the finished mask with hood. Scroll down for more of my progress pictures.
I sculpted it in Chavant Monu-Melt which has become one of my favorite clays. It's a non-sticky oil-based clay and it's fairly soft so it's fast to work with, but it also holds a very good level of detail. Here's what the sculpt looked like early in the process while I was still blocking things out and finding the big shapes.
I used every reference photo I could get my hands on, several dozen in total, including photos of the original production masks that have come up for auction and photos of the second-gen masks that were produced recently. I've never seen one of those masks in person but I'd love to get mine side-by-side with one of them some day to see how close I got.
I spent a lot of time on the texturing process. On the original production-used masks you can see rake marks and other tooling marks, and I think those details are super important for getting the feel of the mask right. My goal was to match that as closely as I could using the references I had. In this photo you can see how I sculpted in some fake rake marks. Over that I added something like a pore texture using a few different sized ball stylus tools.
And then I used a chip brush to soften the texture and unify it.
This is the final clay sculpt before molding.
I then made two molds. The first one was a junk silicone mold to get the sculpt off the head armature. Using the junk mold I made a slush cast with rigid urethane resin. On that cast I sculpted in the back (face) side of the mask using epoxy clay. Then with that cast I made a two-part brush-on mold, front and back. Here's the clay up for the front side. You can see one of the eye holes I added for vision, same as what the production-used masks had. Although you can't see it in the photos, there's also a small rectangular hole under the teeth for breathing (which was also present on the production-used masks).
And here's me with the completed mold and one of the casts. My understanding is that the original production masks were flexible expanding urethane foam. I wanted mine to be lightweight and not floppy, so I ended up using a rigid expanding foam, and they're skinned with a thin layer of rigid urethane resin that gets brushed into the mold before closing it up to add the foam. There's a single pour spout on the bottom and two small vent holes on the corners of the chin. It's just enough to let the expanding foam out but also give me enough back pressure to fill the mold entirely. The cast weighs about 1.5 pounds.
I believe the originals used metal powder that was brushed into the mold to give a silver appearance. That wouldn't work with my process so instead I used a metallic silver acrylic paint which I think is a fairly close match. There's just a tiny bit of dark wash to bring out the sculpting details and give it some depth, and the teeth and eyes are coated with a glossy clear.
Thanks for looking! Now I just need to sew the rest of the suit
Here's a look at the finished mask with hood. Scroll down for more of my progress pictures.
I sculpted it in Chavant Monu-Melt which has become one of my favorite clays. It's a non-sticky oil-based clay and it's fairly soft so it's fast to work with, but it also holds a very good level of detail. Here's what the sculpt looked like early in the process while I was still blocking things out and finding the big shapes.
I used every reference photo I could get my hands on, several dozen in total, including photos of the original production masks that have come up for auction and photos of the second-gen masks that were produced recently. I've never seen one of those masks in person but I'd love to get mine side-by-side with one of them some day to see how close I got.
I spent a lot of time on the texturing process. On the original production-used masks you can see rake marks and other tooling marks, and I think those details are super important for getting the feel of the mask right. My goal was to match that as closely as I could using the references I had. In this photo you can see how I sculpted in some fake rake marks. Over that I added something like a pore texture using a few different sized ball stylus tools.
And then I used a chip brush to soften the texture and unify it.
This is the final clay sculpt before molding.
I then made two molds. The first one was a junk silicone mold to get the sculpt off the head armature. Using the junk mold I made a slush cast with rigid urethane resin. On that cast I sculpted in the back (face) side of the mask using epoxy clay. Then with that cast I made a two-part brush-on mold, front and back. Here's the clay up for the front side. You can see one of the eye holes I added for vision, same as what the production-used masks had. Although you can't see it in the photos, there's also a small rectangular hole under the teeth for breathing (which was also present on the production-used masks).
And here's me with the completed mold and one of the casts. My understanding is that the original production masks were flexible expanding urethane foam. I wanted mine to be lightweight and not floppy, so I ended up using a rigid expanding foam, and they're skinned with a thin layer of rigid urethane resin that gets brushed into the mold before closing it up to add the foam. There's a single pour spout on the bottom and two small vent holes on the corners of the chin. It's just enough to let the expanding foam out but also give me enough back pressure to fill the mold entirely. The cast weighs about 1.5 pounds.
I believe the originals used metal powder that was brushed into the mold to give a silver appearance. That wouldn't work with my process so instead I used a metallic silver acrylic paint which I think is a fairly close match. There's just a tiny bit of dark wash to bring out the sculpting details and give it some depth, and the teeth and eyes are coated with a glossy clear.
Thanks for looking! Now I just need to sew the rest of the suit
