Sith Acolyte Masks... and other random things: Outside Pattern and Design

This page is intended to show the steps I took to finish the outside of my personal mask. If you have any comments on how to do things better, please let me know.

If you look online, you'll notice that the outside of the mask is embossed, i.e. the gray areas are slightly higher than the black areas. I'm going to do this using two different products. I saw in some other blogs on costume making people using this foam to emboss the surface of their armor or whatever. I'm going to use this for the ridge that runs down the center of the mask. I got this pack off ebay for really cheap. The sheets are probably about 1/16 inches thick. Im going to use hot glue to glue this to the mask. The second product will likely be card stock.

This is an image of me trying to decide on how I want make the center ridge that runs down the forehead. Once I decided on something I liked, I made some approximate measurements and cut out the pattern for the foam. This pattern was drawn onto printer paper. You could probably do it on card stock if you want something that will last longer.

This is an image of the printer paper pattern that will later be used for the foam.

More approximate measurements and patterns for the mouth area.

These silver dots are preliminary markers where I plan on making an engraved area in the pattern later. The silver dots were made using a silver sharpie. The mask is going to be symmetrical, so I'm only going to work on one side and try to create some sort of pattern for the other side.

This is the foam that I used the printer paper pattern on. I found that this stuff is actually kind of hard to cut without having semi-jagged lines. The best way that Ive found to cut this stuff is to use a ruler as a straight edge and then use a razor along that edge. If anybody has any better ideas on how to cut foam, please let me know.

I'm using hot glue to glue the foam to the outside of the mask. When hot glued, the foam would rather tear then come off the mask.

Trying to figure out how to put pattern on the outside of the mask has been extremely difficult. This picture is just a picture of printer paper cut and taped to the side of the mask so I can get an idea of what patter I wan to do. Once I'm done with the pattern, I'll transpose it onto a piece of 3 mil plastic. I've noticed as I've been looking at images online that there are basically two styles of mask patterns. I don't know if there is actually a name for these patterns but I think of them as being the tiger pattern and the filigree pattern. The tiger pattern is more striped and has straight lines. The filigree pattern is more swirly and leafy looking.

This is what I plan on doing with the side of the mask. The half sun pattern was just something I found online.

If you look closely at this image, you'll see a piece of tape over the number four. I found out that graphite comes off the mask when you stick a layer of tape over it. This allows you to draw on your mask, then pull the pattern off using the tape, and then reapply the tape to a piece of white paper where the pattern is easily visible. You then can cut the pattern out. See below.

This piece of paper is an exact replica of the pattern I needed.

This my pattern after being changed a few times; I couldn't decide what I wanted. I taped this pattern to the 3 mil plastic (High Impact Styrene) and then using a ruler as a straight edge and a razor and cut the plastic out.

Cheek pattern cut out of the plastic.

I used primer on the mask so that is why the mask is now gray. As you can see, I glued the plastic onto the mask using super glue.

This is where I started trying to figure out where I wanted is center ridge to be placed. This center ridge is made out of 5 mil plastic. I got this plastic from a company that makes plastic signs. I used a heat gun to warm the plastic so it would contour to the mask.

I used my heat gun to warm up the 5 mil plastic and then would side a piece of paper with a dab of super glue on the corner under the piece I heated up, touching it to the bottom of the heated plastic to transfer the superglue. I then would push the heated plastic to the mask, securing it the mask.

These pictures show the "blood groove" down the ridge of the mask and the two patterns over the eyes.

Thats the Black Sun logo. Again this was just traced and carved using a razor. I also purchased a small file set, which is really helpful in these small areas. The red stuff on the plastic you keep seeing is spot filler. You can get it in a tube an any automotive section of Walmart. I also added a couple pieces of plastic on the sides of the mouth and then filled the inside edges with filler so this would all look like one piece when painted.

You can also see quite easily in this picture that I added the speaker grill to the inside of the eyes.

I use Testers enamel paints because they're cheap and abundant in the US. If the enamel is diluted 1:1 with Testers thinner, it goes on smooth enough to not leave brush strokes. I am using "steal" and "flat black" as the color scheme.

This is the pattern for the top of the head. I cut it out with a razor and super glued it. Im so picky, I almost gave up on doing something on the top of the head because I couldn't decide on what I wanted to do.