Green Goblin mask sculpt for costume (WIP)

Hello, I have been browsing for a few months now and decided to finally post my project.

This is a sculpt I am working on for my Dragon*Con costume this year. This is not the finished sculpt. I need to finish the ears, sculpt the back of the head, then smooth and add final detail and texture. The lenses are a gold mirrored sunglasses lens that I taped up to keep clean and sculpted on top of to have the correct brow shape. This is the first time I have touched clay since high school (I'm 32 now) and this is the first thing at all of this magnitude that I have attempted to sculpt. I hope to cast the final product in silicone and give it a realistic paint job, though I have never molded and cast something like this or done a paint job as detailed as I want this to be either. With out further ado.. pictures!

Front:
View attachment 349699
The pumpkin bomb is a quick rough sculpt I did to show a potential client for a commission. Those 3 tools on the turn table are the only things I used besides my hands so far. I have since gotten a better set with some rakes and loop tools, but everything in the sculpt you see was done with those limited tools in the picture.


3/4 side view
View attachment 349702
As you can see, the ears need some extra parts to be anatomically correct. These have been the hardest thing to sculpt so far.


Here is a picture with the test hat that I made to see what the mask shape will look like with the hat on. This picture was taken when I first added the rough ear shape and before I gave them any detail.


I have taken a break from the sculpting to focus on getting some work started on the suit, but I hope to get back to this and get it molded and cast in the next 2 weeks.

Stay tuned!

-Kevin

Looks great!!

Here is an update. I have nearly finished. I still have to clean up a few areas and fix symmetry issues, but all the shapes are finalized. I will be trying my best to smooth out the bumps before doing the texturing.

Great job man, can't wait to see it finished and painted up.

Quick update. Not going to add pictures, but the inner mold has been made. I used Rebound 25 to make a glove mold. I will do the mother mold in plaster bandages tomorrow. Hope to have first pull by the end of the week.

Mold is completed and has been opened.


I left the ears open as I was worried about them locking the mold. I just couldn't figure out a good seam line. I think it will work out though as the rubber mold thickness there supports itself and it will allow me to manipulate them to make sure I get silicone all the way in to the ear tips. I cut 2 seams in the glove mold on the side up the front of the ears. This may be an issue layer, but again, I was worried about getting the ears demolded. I was able to get all the clay out and just have a little scrubbing to do. I think all of the detail was picked up. I can see the wrinkles I sculpted and can even feel little bumps in the areas I added pores.

Here is the inside of the mold.


I think I will run a plaster, clay or resin pull to check the detail before I do any silicone tests. I'm not certain if I will just press the core in or if I will try to set up for an injection mold. I am also trying to figure out how to integrate the lenses in to the cast. I need silicone in front of them so they sit in place and also silicone behind them to rest against my face. Anyone know if its possible to embed them if I do something like put a first layer of silicone, place the lenses, then run the rest of the silicone behind them? The sculpt even survived the demold mostly in tact. Only the tip of the nose and the ears, as expected, came off.

I'll see how the first rigid pull comes out before I clean off the core for silicone pulls. If in worst case I have to repair the sculpt and remold it shouldn't take much.

I decided to forego any non-silicone testing and just play around with silicone pulls. First I tested pigmenting the silicone and ran a small layer on the front of the face to test the fit.

As you can probably tell, the color is way off. For some reason the green pigment is aquamarine/turquoise. I'll have to add yellow to balance it out. I tested trying to cast just an ear and it had a void in it. I'm still trying to figure out how to cast it as 1 piece and make sure the ears get filled.

I am going to get more silicone before I do any more pulls. In the meantime, I have finally started working on the suit. See my other thread for that part of the costume.
http://www.therpf.com/f78/green-goblin-movie-inspired-original-design-costume-wip-217943/

You could maybe try a syringe with a small length of tubing on it that you could stick into the ears and inject it in the ears first before pouring the rest in. Could work!

That is a great suggestion. I hadn't thought of flexible tubing as an option.

Really cool, good job. Love me a classic Green Goblin

Here is the first full pull of the mask. This is what made it to DragonCon.


There were some thin spots and general unevenness to the thickness of the mask, but it fit near perfect and all the holes lined up where I intended. The biggest issue was a tear in the back of one ear causing it to flop down to the side. I ended up tucking the bad ear under the hat and only had the good ear showing. Surprisingly only one person commented on it at con.

Here is what it looks like with the lenses, but these did not get attached for con.





I really like how these look. I regret not having them in the mask for con. Unfortunately, these are not the lenses that were used to sculpt over and are smaller. I don't know if these can be embedded in the mask without popping out. There is not much space around the edge of the eye hole to sandwich these in with silicone.

Finally, here is the mask with the small bit of the costume you can see in this photo.



This is the only good photo I had taken of this costume on my own phone. I hope I can track down others' photos of me.