Cooper Howard - AKA The Ghoul full cosplay outfit build

[DalekNim]

Things are moving along nicely ... I added registration keys then began the process for making the first half of the fiberglass mold.
- Sealed the clay wall with 2 coats of a gloss clear coat
- sprayed a couple of costs of mold release over everything
- first coat of gel coat - Smooth-On ExpoACoat Red
- some EpoxACast 650 to fill in the mouth, nose and eye sockets
- added some panel door nails to reinforce the mouth
- second round of EpoxACoat Red gel coat
- some free form habitat black around the eyes, eyes, nose to round them out to make fiberglassing easier
- several layers of EpoxAmite 100 resin and 6oz fiberglass cloth
- a layer of free form air over the flange to stiffen it
- final layers of fiberglass cloth and EpoxAmitec100 resin
- done
Tomorrow I'll clean out the Wed clay and repeat the process for the back half of the mold.. I won't need to do any reinforcing* with ApoxACast 650 or adding panel nails since the back of the head is pretty simple

 

[DalekNim]

well, for the first time since starting this mask making effort I'm starting to think I may actually create a silicon mask ...

the fiberglass mold is complete and teh core has been removed with the mold intact. there are a few imperfections but I don't think they will be an issue as they are around the shoulder area of the core. one potential concern is that there looks to be one small area near one ear where the clay sculpt is pretty thin and I don't know if there will enough room for the power mesh & silicon. I could switch to using panty hose instead of power mesh which is extremely thin and I'm going to look into shaving some off the core. the issue with that is its a stone life cast so I don't know if I can realistically shave any off it.
If anyone out there who is following along has any suggestions please speak up!

tomorrow I'll finish cleaning out the clay in the mold and start cutting out the pattern for the power mesh hood and take a close look at that thin area ...

 

[DalekNim]

Found a form fitting nylon stocking mask that goes down to the neck line so I don't have to try and stitch or glue something together ... vacuum chamber is setup as well, I just need to find the right size bucket to fit in the chamber so I can degas all the silicon at once. Other than that everything is ready to see if my months of effort will pay off. Tomorrow I'll spray the mold with a release agent made up of 70% 99% alcohol and 30% Palmolive dish soap, then put on the nylon hood over my core and bolt it into the mold. Then we're ready to mix and degas the silicon and pour it in hoping it all doesn't just leak out. Then on to demold, seam & patch and paint ...

 

[animator]

Amazing progress! You bit off a lot with that mold and it looks great! The Stan Winston videos are gold and it you follow the instructions everything should turn out great!

 

[DalekNim]

Amazing progress! You bit off a lot with that mold and it looks great! The Stan Winston videos are gold and it you follow the instructions everything should turn out great!

Thx! I feel like I'm back in high school studding for hours every night ... lol

 

[DalekNim]

Ok, so the silicon mask is poured ... even after putting some tinted silicon part B & some A aside for seaming & patching I ended up with 300 g extra so I made a few silicon disks. Even though though I was pretty sure my calculations were good, I used 4.2 lbs of my 4.5 lb block of monster clay so converting that to volume gave me a good number, but you never know and since I'm in a time crunch and wont have time to do a 2nd pour I figured I better err on the side of caution and not put too much aside for seaming & patching ... hopefully I'll have enough assuming I don't have any big patch jobs to do ... if needed I can just work on the areas that will not be covered by the cowboy hat. of course if I have some big areas I can hopefully do teh 2 day Amazon thing ... unfortuantely my local Smooth-on distributor recently moved & that cant have walk-ins yet ...
the silicon disks I made cured nicely so I know my mixing was good so assuming my mold release mixture of 99% alcohol and dish soap was dry so it didn't inhibit the silicon I should have a mask of some sort. luckily the final steps of seaming and patching & painting don't really come with any risks and are reasonably straight forward. although Ive never painted a mask Ive become pretty reasonable with an airbrush so we'll see

tomorrow I'll open the mold & get started with seaming and hopefully minimal patching ...

 

[animator]

I'm excited to see your mask! Wash it really well before painting to get any release off. If you follow the Stan Winston videos on painting a silicone mask it should go very well.

 

[DalekNim]

Ok so I have a silicon mask!
Upon inspection after demold there was one small area under one ear where there was a chip in the gel coat which i knew about that silicon flowed into requiring me to remove it and do a small patch. other than that and the pour spout the only thing I needed to do was clean up the seam. The pour went extremely well with no micro bubbles or air pockets requiring patching.
since i decided to err on the side of caution WRT tinting the silicon since you can't untint if its too opaque there are a couple of areas where the silicon is translucent enough that you can see the black power mesh underneath. Not a big deal as I can deal with that during paint. better too transparent than too opaque.

so tomorrow it will be time to paint which then leave only one more step and one more decision. I need to cut out the eye sockets, mouth and ear holes after I'm done painting. that only leaves what to do about the nose. my options are:

1: leave as is, paint the inside black and cut nose holes in the bottom
2: cut out the 'missing nose section', use black makeup over the top of my nose when wearing the mask and adjust it so my nostrils are open.

Any of you experienced mask makers out there please chime in with your thoughts ...

 

[animator]

Very nicely done! Not even much of a seam!

 

[DalekNim]

thx! finally got to go to the local Smooth-on supplier -Reynold's Advanced Materials as I needed to get some DurmaTac & bring the mask with me. they recommended not cutting out the nose, just painting it black & cut 2 small nostril holes underneath. there are a couple of relatively thin areas where I didn't sculpt thick enough and so I added a few layers of silicon to build up those areas using the same technique I would to make a patch. the mask is now ready for painting.
they also suggested i could take some SilPoxy and adhere some power mesh to the inside of the mask in those areas to strengthen them against possible tearing which seems like a good idea as well ...

 

[DalekNim]

Finished painting the mask and thought I was done ... first step was to get the mask off my life cast and take a look at the 2 small nostril holes I made. Getting the mask off was harder than I thought and having never worked with a silicon mask I didn't know how rough I could be and I was still worried about potential thin areas. Finally got it off and it actually looks like I don't need to do any reinforcements. The power mesh has bond3d to the silicon and since it extends down the neck area it looks good. However, when my wife looked at it she said it looked like too normal a skin tone ... well while that's a nice compliment about my ability to airbrush skin tones the Ghoul ha s a much more 'yellowish brown' look so I made a makeshift 2x4 frame to sit teh mask on and tonight we'll do one more round of painting ... that should be the end, except for learning how to put it on and take it off it on of course ...

 

[DalekNim]

well it was a mad rush to get everything completed in time for MegaCon this past weekend and get ready for the Masters of Cosplay Sunshine Qualifier where I was a finalist in the novice division but we got it done ...

 

[animator]

Wonderfully done and in record time! All the pictures are fantastic! I am very impressed!

 

[DalekNim]

Wonderfully done and in record time! All the pictures are fantastic! I am very impressed!

Thx! After a short break it will be time to start the next build ..

 

[joberg]

Very good workmanship all in all

 

[DalekNim]

Very good workmanship all in all

Thx!!