One thing that lies in your favour when doing this costume is the fact that - although ALL Tuskens look the same - they are all quite unique from one another. As well, certain attributes and details of the mask vary from film to film. Do your research and you will see what I mean.
Okay - the first thing you need to do is create the "frame" from which you will work on. I've seen everything from plastic frames glued under a ball-cap to vacu-formed mask peices. I myself opted for a reliable, yet fairly cheap method; paper mache. There are pros and cons to using this medium, but at the time, I opted this road. It is a GREAT way to inexpensively work on 3D molding.
I started with my dark brown vinyl for the mouth. Using hot glue, I wrapped it around, ovelapping and folding it to get the desired effect. In the middle of the "snout" i cut a round hole to feed the material into. I work in a Restaurant and we are currently redoing our booth covers. I have lots of this dark brown vinyl which works great for the nose, resirator and bandoliers (grin). Of course, I gotta wash it a few times.
and here is a shot of the thread spools I've used for eyes. These things cost me $2 - and I didn't even find a use for ALL the thread - what a ripoff (hehe).
You can also see the sculpey that I am beginning to mold into the nose/teeth peice.
- And here are the finished eyes and the tusk peices (Highlighters) painted and drying. My Teeth are done too as you can see. I realized after the fact that the leftover spool peices were closer to being screen-acurate tusks than my highlighters were. all they needed was a bit of tube/pipe at the end of them. You can see them stacked together at the back of the table.
Here you can see the mask starting to come into itself. I am applying the first layers of bandages onto the helmet, covering up the areas around the eyes and tusks. It is better to get these "tough areas" covered before you start adding the long strips of bandage.
So after doing a balloon mold, and then extending the sides downwards with another ballon, this is what I ended up with. the nose peice is actually just a triangle of plastic from a juice jug that was wrapped in more mache. One thing to remember with mache is that it takes a LOOONGG time to dry - so plan ahead. As well, you have to worry about MOULD. Some recipes call for bleach, salt, etc to keep this from happening. You can also paint the mache after to "seal" it up too.
I've had this 'ol catcher's mitt kicking around for ages. It's pretty much lost it's use as a glove, but is going to work nicely on my mask. Just look at the beautiful shades/textures of leather there are in this thing. It really made the 'weathered' look of the material around the snout look truly authentic.
