Primary materials: Plastic from gallon water bottles, braided thread, markers, electro-luminescent wires.
One day I found a spool of flat, braided thread in a dumpster. It was the same dumpster where I got wood and metal for two other masks. This garbage receptacle was quite a patron of the arts.
I had the idea of using the braided thread to tie together sheets of plastic cut from gallon water bottles. I’d never built a mask like this before, but was somewhat inspired by people in Cateura, Paraguy, who make musical instruments out of garbage.
I built the eyes and the “crown” of bottle handles first, and then worked around putting pieces on the top and sides of the mask. I allowed myself to be pretty non-fussy. The somewhat withered, melted appearance comes from using a heat gun on the plastic to shape it and add extra character.
For the black patterns, I drew some inspiration from runes on Isaac Clarke’s “Witness” space suit from Dead Space 3. I haven’t played that game (or its predecessors), but somewhat randomly stumbled upon a music video about the game that showed the suit, and thought it looked interesting.
For the coloration I did whatever I wanted. I knew I would make other masks using bottles, and wanted to experiment on this one to see what color combinations would look good for future projects.
This is the first project where I used electro-luminescent-wire lights. The wire coming out of the mask connects the lights to power packs that can be put in your pocket or on your belt when wearing this. Actually, the “true” power-pack wires are only about five inches long. To make this workable I had to run the luminescent wire out the back the required distance and then cover it with tape. This cost the mask itself about four feet of luminescent wire, and I didn’t have a lot to begin with. The dark colors I used further obscured the lights. They still create a glowing “mad-scientist brain” look that is somewhat interesting, but which I have not been able to capture successfully in a picture.
This entire mask, in fact, was at the time the most difficult to photograph because of its range of colors, irregular shape, and shininess.
Time for a bonus picture!
I took this one with a longer exposure time than usual. This gives it more of a jack-o’-lantern look than it has in real life. I think it’s somewhat evocative.