Kurosaki Ichigo Cosplay: Hollow Mask
During the making of my costume, I used a lot of other people's posts and comments on various pages I found via google. I figure I should return the favor, and post how I did mine and all the pitfalls I hit. Good luck on your costume! Drop me a PM if you want a larger pic, questions, etc. Also, let me know how yours comes out!
The Hollow Mask
Kurosaki Ichigo's Vizard Mask from the anime Bleach
My personal favorite of my costume pieces. This one I actually made up on my own as I went along. Not the ideal situation, but somehow it all mostly worked out. O.o
Step one - find your reference pics! Bonus - this usually means re-watching a bunch of episodes to get good screenshots.
Here's the two I used--
From the Amagi Taicho filler arc:
From the 11-second Grimjow battle:
So, I had to decide what material to use for a mask. I'd never made a mask before. Wandering around the craft store I found something called "Celluclay". It's like paper-maché, but it's mostly powder, instead of paper strips. It's light, and very importantly, it's sandable.
It's not entirely the easiest stuff to work with. (Of course, I don't have a lot of experience working with anything else either.)
I mixed batches at a time, rather than all at once. It will keep in the fridge, as I later discovered, but I was scared to use all of it at one time. I mixed white acrylic paint into warm water, and then sprinkled it over the powder I'd scooped into a bowl. This stuff goes from 'way to dry' to 'way to wet' very quickly. I'd suggest mix a little water at a time until you can get it a reasonable consistency. (Also useful to keep some powder dry on the side, in case you have to add more.)
This stuff claims to 'dry white', but no, not really. Fortunately I learned this on a batch of teeth that I screwed up on, so I learned two lessons from the price of one. Even though you do add the white here, you'll still want to paint it later also, in my opinion.
Here's me making the teeth:
I used a rolling pin to roll out the celluclay. Later, I used a saran-wrapped table for the mask, here just a scrap piece of board.
The celluclay does not cut smooth like clay. You tend to get little clumps. I got the teeth as smooth as I could, and then relied on the sanding later. I let them dry (on a balloon, I was trying to get them to dry a little curved since I thought that's how they would lay on the mask. This was mostly unnecessary, and I think can be skipped). Oh, "24 hours" is also a lie. Either that, or they tested drying in a place lot less humid than Hawaii (...oh wait).
After they were dry, a little sanding to the edges and top made the teeth look a lot better. A final coat of white acrylic paint (cut with water, because I wanted to retain the 'unfinished' look of the mask).
I made the teeth first because I wanted to get a feel for how the celluclay worked. Now I was ready to try the mask. I'm sorry, I don't have a lot of pictures - my hands were a little coated with this white paste.
I saran-wrapped a small table (taped the edges - otherwise the saran wrap will move!) and got a bowlful of mixed clay (roughly grapefruit sized, as I remember), a rolling pin, some shaping and cutting tools, foil, a little bowl of water, and some paper towels, a few balloons, and a large tupperware (big enough for a blown-up balloon). And a LOT of patience.
I rolled out the celluclay to about the thickness I wanted - about 1/8 of an inch. Ish.
Taking my best guess, I trimmed it to roughly mask shape (leave extra). Then I placed it on my own face. People tell me vaseline would have been a good idea, but I was ok without it. (And I worry what the vaseline would have done to the clay.) Keep the trimmed off bits damp by wrapping in a damp paper towel. You'll use it later.
Using one of the shaping tools, I lightly drew where my face actually was. I took off the mask, laid it back down and re-trimmed ONE SIDE. Everything will be with this same side until I mention otherwise.
I repeated this several times to get the shape right. I made sure to line up the mask on my face in the same place the best I could each time. I gently marked where my eye was, and then cut it out after taking off the mask. I cut it with an exacto knife (a little overkill, but it's what I had), keeping it in that roughly parallelogram shape.
Don't worry about the raised bit that flows over the nose. You'll work on that later. I just made an indent where my nose was to make it comfortable on the inside.
After I had got one side the way I wanted, I traced it out onto foil. (Paper would have probably worked. Foil is what was in reach at the time.) Then I flipped it over onto the other (relatively untouched) half of the mask, and used it as a guide to cut THIS side.
(Yay for having a symmetrical mask.)
Now, notice that the flat table is beginning to fail here. I blew up a balloon, and placed it in the large tupperware. This is my new working surface. Placing the mask on my face again, I squished/smoothed the forehead and jawline to it's natural curved shape. Once I was happy with the shape (edges and eyes), I left it on the balloon for a bit.
Taking the previously trimmed bits, I re-rolled it out on the table. Using my old foil guide, I created a piece of clay that covered the brow (and most of the forehead - getting thinner at the edges), and swept down for that nose piece. It looked a little like a curved V. The point was the nose, curving upwards between the eyes, and spreading out over the brow line and forehead. I hope I'm describing this well enough.
I placed this on top of the rest of the mask and blended it together (with slight pressure, water and extra-wet clay) to make the full mask. Which now looks like this:
The edges aren't completely smooth, the face surface isn't really either. This is okay-ish, you can sand some of it down later. I would have spent a bit longer making it more smooth now though (had I known that sanding wasn't going to go quite as well as I thought later).
Notice however, that a balloon and a face do not have the same proportions. This was going to dry way too wide, and I wasn't letting this dry on my face, thank you. I grabbed some painter's tape, and taped gently the middle of the balloon to make it more cylindrical. This took a couple of tries to get the balloon blown up just the right amount to most closely match my face.
Not shown here is the rubber band I loosely put over the chin area to pull it more curved. It had already dried for a few hours before I noticed the chin was still way too wide. The band did the trick, but make sure it's a wide one and not tight enough to leave funny marks behind.
After it has really completely dried (a couple of days for me), I sanded the face surface and edges of the mask. This wasn't perfectly smooth, but it got decent. I painted the entire surface white with the acrylic paint (cut with a little water), and let dry again.
I lined up my teeth in the order I wanted to put them off the mask. I tried to match up size/shape variations so that it would be symmetrical top/bottom and side/side. Using some more celluclay, I cemented the teeth into place. And let dry.
Very carefully, I marked in pencil where I wanted to paint the red lines. Pencil was actually almost erasable off the paint, but I wouldn't want to rely on it. Using a very thin brush, I carefully painted the "barn red" acrylic paint onto the mask. Even undiluted, it took a few coats. I then very carefully painted white over all of my little mistakes using a toothpick. This stuff is not easy to paint. And let dry.
About this time I realized that I didn't have a good plan to make that black line sweep from the eyes to the edge of the mask. I used a pencil to draw it in, as I was running out of time. (Like two days until con.)
Flipping the mask over, I cemented in four little jewelry charms on the inside edge (don't let it jut out too far) of the mask - two by the temple, two under my cheekbone where the mask sweeps in (see pic later). The little loops on the charm (where you would normally thread chain) I used for tying the stretchy cord. I didn't want to have a band go around my head, so these were for ear loops! The stretchy cord I got was actually too stretchy. I had to braid three strands together, and then use that to tie between the two charms on each side. A bit of trial and error to get the right length.
The eyes! This was fun! Mostly because I didn't expect it to work as well as it did.
I bought this two-inch wide transparent ribbon:
Using crocus yellow (and crocus yellow cut with a tiny bit of white), I painted two eyes (using a toothpick) onto the ribbon. (Paper towel underneath is a must.) It took a couple of tries, and I tried a couple of tricks to get the two eyes to match each other (but none really worked well). Cutting out the two lengths with eyes, I taped them to the inside of the mask. (Duct tape ... it's what I had handy.)
Make sure to line up the eyes with the eye holes. Now with no light from behind the ribbon, it's looks solid from the front!
However, you can see pretty well!
Here's a shot of my (messy) desk from behind the mask:
No peripheral, but it still freaks people out that you can actually see out of this thing.
And here's a shot of the final result!
Notes:
* I sewed two hooks onto Ichigo's jacket - one on each side of the shoulder. When I wasn't wearing the mask, it rested on my shoulder. Very, very useful, and quite stylish.
* No air holes. I didn't have time to play with adding holes and possibly ruining the mask, so I just skipped them. It made the mask hot to wear, but it spent a lot of time on my shoulder.
* Unfinished. This will melt in the rain. I don't know what I could use on the front to seal it and yet have it look matte/unfinished. It might have been a good idea to seal the inside with something, but I didn't have time.
The Hollow Mask
Kurosaki Ichigo's Vizard Mask from the anime Bleach
My personal favorite of my costume pieces. This one I actually made up on my own as I went along. Not the ideal situation, but somehow it all mostly worked out. O.o
Step one - find your reference pics! Bonus - this usually means re-watching a bunch of episodes to get good screenshots.
Here's the two I used--
From the Amagi Taicho filler arc:
From the 11-second Grimjow battle:
So, I had to decide what material to use for a mask. I'd never made a mask before. Wandering around the craft store I found something called "Celluclay". It's like paper-maché, but it's mostly powder, instead of paper strips. It's light, and very importantly, it's sandable.
It's not entirely the easiest stuff to work with. (Of course, I don't have a lot of experience working with anything else either.)
I mixed batches at a time, rather than all at once. It will keep in the fridge, as I later discovered, but I was scared to use all of it at one time. I mixed white acrylic paint into warm water, and then sprinkled it over the powder I'd scooped into a bowl. This stuff goes from 'way to dry' to 'way to wet' very quickly. I'd suggest mix a little water at a time until you can get it a reasonable consistency. (Also useful to keep some powder dry on the side, in case you have to add more.)
This stuff claims to 'dry white', but no, not really. Fortunately I learned this on a batch of teeth that I screwed up on, so I learned two lessons from the price of one. Even though you do add the white here, you'll still want to paint it later also, in my opinion.
Here's me making the teeth:
I used a rolling pin to roll out the celluclay. Later, I used a saran-wrapped table for the mask, here just a scrap piece of board.
The celluclay does not cut smooth like clay. You tend to get little clumps. I got the teeth as smooth as I could, and then relied on the sanding later. I let them dry (on a balloon, I was trying to get them to dry a little curved since I thought that's how they would lay on the mask. This was mostly unnecessary, and I think can be skipped). Oh, "24 hours" is also a lie. Either that, or they tested drying in a place lot less humid than Hawaii (...oh wait).
After they were dry, a little sanding to the edges and top made the teeth look a lot better. A final coat of white acrylic paint (cut with water, because I wanted to retain the 'unfinished' look of the mask).
I made the teeth first because I wanted to get a feel for how the celluclay worked. Now I was ready to try the mask. I'm sorry, I don't have a lot of pictures - my hands were a little coated with this white paste.
I saran-wrapped a small table (taped the edges - otherwise the saran wrap will move!) and got a bowlful of mixed clay (roughly grapefruit sized, as I remember), a rolling pin, some shaping and cutting tools, foil, a little bowl of water, and some paper towels, a few balloons, and a large tupperware (big enough for a blown-up balloon). And a LOT of patience.
I rolled out the celluclay to about the thickness I wanted - about 1/8 of an inch. Ish.
Taking my best guess, I trimmed it to roughly mask shape (leave extra). Then I placed it on my own face. People tell me vaseline would have been a good idea, but I was ok without it. (And I worry what the vaseline would have done to the clay.) Keep the trimmed off bits damp by wrapping in a damp paper towel. You'll use it later.
Using one of the shaping tools, I lightly drew where my face actually was. I took off the mask, laid it back down and re-trimmed ONE SIDE. Everything will be with this same side until I mention otherwise.
I repeated this several times to get the shape right. I made sure to line up the mask on my face in the same place the best I could each time. I gently marked where my eye was, and then cut it out after taking off the mask. I cut it with an exacto knife (a little overkill, but it's what I had), keeping it in that roughly parallelogram shape.
Don't worry about the raised bit that flows over the nose. You'll work on that later. I just made an indent where my nose was to make it comfortable on the inside.
After I had got one side the way I wanted, I traced it out onto foil. (Paper would have probably worked. Foil is what was in reach at the time.) Then I flipped it over onto the other (relatively untouched) half of the mask, and used it as a guide to cut THIS side.
(Yay for having a symmetrical mask.)
Now, notice that the flat table is beginning to fail here. I blew up a balloon, and placed it in the large tupperware. This is my new working surface. Placing the mask on my face again, I squished/smoothed the forehead and jawline to it's natural curved shape. Once I was happy with the shape (edges and eyes), I left it on the balloon for a bit.
Taking the previously trimmed bits, I re-rolled it out on the table. Using my old foil guide, I created a piece of clay that covered the brow (and most of the forehead - getting thinner at the edges), and swept down for that nose piece. It looked a little like a curved V. The point was the nose, curving upwards between the eyes, and spreading out over the brow line and forehead. I hope I'm describing this well enough.
I placed this on top of the rest of the mask and blended it together (with slight pressure, water and extra-wet clay) to make the full mask. Which now looks like this:
The edges aren't completely smooth, the face surface isn't really either. This is okay-ish, you can sand some of it down later. I would have spent a bit longer making it more smooth now though (had I known that sanding wasn't going to go quite as well as I thought later).
Notice however, that a balloon and a face do not have the same proportions. This was going to dry way too wide, and I wasn't letting this dry on my face, thank you. I grabbed some painter's tape, and taped gently the middle of the balloon to make it more cylindrical. This took a couple of tries to get the balloon blown up just the right amount to most closely match my face.
Not shown here is the rubber band I loosely put over the chin area to pull it more curved. It had already dried for a few hours before I noticed the chin was still way too wide. The band did the trick, but make sure it's a wide one and not tight enough to leave funny marks behind.
After it has really completely dried (a couple of days for me), I sanded the face surface and edges of the mask. This wasn't perfectly smooth, but it got decent. I painted the entire surface white with the acrylic paint (cut with a little water), and let dry again.
I lined up my teeth in the order I wanted to put them off the mask. I tried to match up size/shape variations so that it would be symmetrical top/bottom and side/side. Using some more celluclay, I cemented the teeth into place. And let dry.
Very carefully, I marked in pencil where I wanted to paint the red lines. Pencil was actually almost erasable off the paint, but I wouldn't want to rely on it. Using a very thin brush, I carefully painted the "barn red" acrylic paint onto the mask. Even undiluted, it took a few coats. I then very carefully painted white over all of my little mistakes using a toothpick. This stuff is not easy to paint. And let dry.
About this time I realized that I didn't have a good plan to make that black line sweep from the eyes to the edge of the mask. I used a pencil to draw it in, as I was running out of time. (Like two days until con.)
Flipping the mask over, I cemented in four little jewelry charms on the inside edge (don't let it jut out too far) of the mask - two by the temple, two under my cheekbone where the mask sweeps in (see pic later). The little loops on the charm (where you would normally thread chain) I used for tying the stretchy cord. I didn't want to have a band go around my head, so these were for ear loops! The stretchy cord I got was actually too stretchy. I had to braid three strands together, and then use that to tie between the two charms on each side. A bit of trial and error to get the right length.
The eyes! This was fun! Mostly because I didn't expect it to work as well as it did.
I bought this two-inch wide transparent ribbon:
Using crocus yellow (and crocus yellow cut with a tiny bit of white), I painted two eyes (using a toothpick) onto the ribbon. (Paper towel underneath is a must.) It took a couple of tries, and I tried a couple of tricks to get the two eyes to match each other (but none really worked well). Cutting out the two lengths with eyes, I taped them to the inside of the mask. (Duct tape ... it's what I had handy.)
Make sure to line up the eyes with the eye holes. Now with no light from behind the ribbon, it's looks solid from the front!
However, you can see pretty well!
Here's a shot of my (messy) desk from behind the mask:
No peripheral, but it still freaks people out that you can actually see out of this thing.
And here's a shot of the final result!
Notes:
* I sewed two hooks onto Ichigo's jacket - one on each side of the shoulder. When I wasn't wearing the mask, it rested on my shoulder. Very, very useful, and quite stylish.
* No air holes. I didn't have time to play with adding holes and possibly ruining the mask, so I just skipped them. It made the mask hot to wear, but it spent a lot of time on my shoulder.
* Unfinished. This will melt in the rain. I don't know what I could use on the front to seal it and yet have it look matte/unfinished. It might have been a good idea to seal the inside with something, but I didn't have time.