Corrupted Monk Mask
This project was pitched to me by a University friend, who wanted a mask from a game he liked: Sekiro - Shadows Die Twice, to wear when he played at gigs. It was, when I agreed to do it, perhaps beyond my skill level, but I learnt so much working on it, and had such great help from my more sculpting-inclined friends. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to cold cast the mask and polish it up to the metal finish.​
I started sculpting in a group sculpting evening with some friends, and set myself up nicely, learning to just bulk out quickly, not worrying to much about smaller shapes until later. Then having to remove the lower jaw partway through, reshape the nose, and rework the eyebrows all made me more willing to make large changes further into the process. And while the finish wasn't perfect, experimenting and finding out what worked for my friends gave me some new tools and more experience.
Ever since my Anubis project, I have preferred the control and finish that matrix moulding gives. Now it may not have been necessary for a mould I only slush cast in (spoilers), but it gave me a nice easy mould to work with. The horns and teeth however, were just one-part moulds that I cut open, and I am still in the process of finishing up a pair of perfect horns to two-part box mould for future casts.
The first two cold casts were using brass powder, which seemed to match the colour in the games. However after these casts didn't come out how I wanted, I realised that they weren't the right colour, so I switched to Bronze powder, which was a much better match to the finish. Because it was cold cast, all the finished piece needed was some polishing and touch-ups, once the eyes and mouth were dremelled out. The horns and teeth needed some extra work, but got them fitted with some epoxy putty and colour-matched paint.
This project was such a great experience for me, and taught me so much to carry forward to future sculpts. And having leftover casts and the mould has let me experiment so much with finishes. And even just finishing resin casts - I have really had more practice because of the random casts of this mask I have pulled when it's been a dump mould.