Masks and other Art

[Buster's Uncle]

UNO!

[Buster's Uncle]

I did it all for you Uno!

[Mylochka]

I think I intended to do more with the flames -- add orange and red inside the yellow to make them more dramatic... Not sure if I decided not to do that or just never finished this one...  The stick figures were supposed to be suggestive of runes or ritual figures

I cannot recall or find a dedicated thread here for my masks and Mylochka's collaborative painting of same, so I thought it was past time.

I do now have a Masks folder where I'll look for it, and that's going to end up saving me a lot of aggravation, eventually.

Below is the first thing I ever did in plaster, back in 1988.  Most of the people in the class did lame crap with paper plates.  You will be shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that I totally got an A.  It doesn't fit me all that well, because I caved the cheeks in a little as part of the face-shaping.  Mylochka says it's still recognizably me, which I can't believe.

The third is a paper mache impression I did of it a teeny bit more recently.  Looking at the base, you can imagine how much fun it was to separate and mend the back of the horns intact, so between that and having fondness for the somewhat fragile original, I may not do any more copies.  I don't think it's one of M's most inspired paint decoratings ever, but the little dancing devil silhouettes on the face are pretty teh awesome.

I'm the first to admit that this isn't a fantastic mask, taken as the mask I made and not Mylochka's excellent paint job.  I was starting to resolve, towards the end of the last burst of making, that I needed to be making everything decidedly thicker and more inclined to hold shape around the edges, and stop trying to show off how thin and light I could go and still have a solid result.

I note that for anything I photographed myself, I still have the ridiculously-oversized original pics w/o size/cropping and whatever processing I deemed needed, so detail shots are very doable where anyone asks for a closer look.

And for good measure, attached is one Mylochka shot all fancy-like, that's also the only other pic I have readily to hand.  I need to just go through the three boxes near my office and shoot everything ad-hoc as I did above...

There would definitely be some interest, not least on the part of youse fathers of four year-olds, if I had Mylochka photograph the next time I made anything and wrote up my process/techniques, wouldn't there?

[Buster's Uncle]

The colors somehow suggest that you may have had something a little celtic in mind to decorate my Christian Devil?

Maybe I should cast a new base I'm not afraid of ruining and you could do The Horned God, a bull-man fertility theme?  I wouldn't mind running that face off by the dozen if it wasn't for the horns...

[Buster's Uncle]

I think I've posted these before here at AC2, but a cursory keyword search yields nothing and the chance is, the attachments no longer work.

Uno, the renfair idea I never used is this:  I have a nice hooded black Dominican/Devil-worshipper robe, because Mom sews and it's a handy costume piece.  (I actually wore it a few times in the show when I wasn't really working [and once for a gig as a hawker for a leather booth] and didn't want to suit up in rendrag for whatever reason.)  The notion was, I walk around in the robe wearing the white plaster crone mask-



-Not talking or anything - sorta writes itself - creepy death figure or something, and I've seen people do just that reasonably effectively with a black robe and ghoul sorta makeup since.  (The fellow who slowly walked up -I recognized him; it was Walter- and then sonorously said "I'm going to kill you" I shot back "What's taken you so long?")

The TWIST comes when at key moments, I remove the mask to reveal I'm wearing the below-attached latex version underneath (or probably an improved thinner [and better skin-tone match] version to cover more of my face and require less makeup to have a realistic face illusion for at least a second or two of shock).

Too much work to make work day-to-day is why I never explored it further.  It's a cheap shock act, and I already had two characters that didn't take FX to work, though I'm sure I'd have come up with a lot more stock gags in a hurry in practice...

(Again, this was modeled a little impromptu w/o any makeup supporting the look, and I couldn't find any rubber cement or spirit glue, so the edges weren't glued down at all and I was trying to balance on my face.  Also, I should have made it inside the plaster cast of the sculpey original, not outside, for better detail and fit.)

[Mylochka]

Found this picture when I was looking for something else...

[Unorthodox]

That red one is GORGEOUS. 

[Mylochka]

Thanks!  I liked the way all of these turned out.
I used to  have them hanging in my office.  Need to find a new home for them now...

[Buster's Uncle]

Let's see what I've got to post this time...

Okay.  Here's the Buster family chilling out in their palatial California estate.  I don't actually recall for sure how the monkey mask first came to be, but it may have been for this Curious George mask...

[Unorthodox]

I think I've posted these before here at AC2, but a cursory keyword search yields nothing and the chance is, the attachments no longer work.

Uno, the renfair idea I never used is this:  I have a nice hooded black Dominican/Devil-worshipper robe, because Mom sews and it's a handy costume piece.  (I actually wore it a few times in the show when I wasn't really working [and once for a gig as a hawker for a leather booth] and didn't want to suit up in rendrag for whatever reason.)  The notion was, I walk around in the robe wearing the white plaster crone mask-



-Not talking or anything - sorta writes itself - creepy death figure or something, and I've seen people do just that reasonably effectively with a black robe and ghoul sorta makeup since.  (The fellow who slowly walked up -I recognized him; it was Walter- and then sonorously said "I'm going to kill you" I shot back "What's taken you so long?")

The TWIST comes when at key moments, I remove the mask to reveal I'm wearing the below-attached latex version underneath (or probably an improved thinner [and better skin-tone match] version to cover more of my face and require less makeup to have a realistic face illusion for at least a second or two of shock).

Too much work to make work day-to-day is why I never explored it further.  It's a cheap shock act, and I already had two characters that didn't take FX to work, though I'm sure I'd have come up with a lot more stock gags in a hurry in practice...

(Again, this was modeled a little impromptu w/o any makeup supporting the look, and I couldn't find any rubber cement or spirit glue, so the edges weren't glued down at all and I was trying to balance on my face.  Also, I should have made it inside the plaster cast of the sculpey original, not outside, for better detail and fit.)

There was an old...I'm not sure if it was Night Gallery or Twilight Zone, but I lean more Night Gallery.  Rich dude's will stipulates the heirs must wear a mask custom made for them for a night.  When they peel them off, their face has changed underneath to be the mask. 

[Unorthodox]

I was wrong, it's a zone.  I've seen a colorized version, which threw me off thinking it was a Gallery

! Twilight Zone: The Masks

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh, I'm sure it would have been a very effective shock gag -actual screams- but it just wasn't practical in the context of a dirt-floor theme park with me being at large.  Maybe you can do something with it, though...

[Mylochka]

I can't find a picture of the half-masks either (although I know we used them) but here is a scene of Frida with monkeys from the show...

[Buster's Uncle]

Second shot I posted.  Had I not created the monkey base at this point, or did you get out to Texas and realize you hadn't asked?  At least one is just a ball mask cunningly painted.


Note the one in profile.

I'm extremely relived the Frida half-masks were used.  Those I was happy with.  Pity you didn't do anything with the cut-up puzzle face idea; it seems to me very like her.

[Unorthodox]

Let's see what I've got to post this time...

Okay.  Here's the Buster family chilling out in their palatial California estate.  I don't actually recall for sure how the monkey mask first came to be, but it may have been for this Curious George mask...

I don't know about Curious George, I've seen some foreign horror film (french?) featuring a group in similar masks.  Hoods and all.