I said earlierthat I wanted to put together a comparison post with the TOTS Hospital and the NO Maniac masks, and now with pics courtesy of sargenoodels of the new Hospital mask, I can compare it to my Maniac.
The first thing to realize about the Maniac is that most of them have been touched up more often than the Psycho masks have been. I’ve never seen two copies of the Maniac that looked alike. Because of this, there is a HUGE variation in this mask in terms of paint and hair. The paint on the Hospital mask is pretty good, and does a good job of bringing out the many signature features of the Maniac sculpt, including the creased eyebrows, puckered lips, and defined cheeks. However, the paint on the forehead, sadly, does not make the sculpt’s signature V-brow truly pop in a noticeable way like it does on the Maniac. This is mostly due to the fact that Justin Mabry increased the visibility of the V-brow through light shading on the forehead, among the other shading spots he added that really makes the Maniac sculpt pop. The other obvious difference is that the Maniac has a slit mouth, while the Hospital mask does not. This is an easy fix and simply requires an exacto knife or other razor knife to simply create the slit.
Moving on… the hairline on the Hospital mask is noticeably more rounded than on the Maniac, and differs from my copy by running parallel with the glue line rather than angling off from it. Like its Maniacal origin, the Hospital mask has no ear holes. This is unlike the Elrod mask, which does have ear holes despite the Psycho not having them. The paint doesn’t really bring out the little nicks and lines in the pull, which is a much smoother than most pulls of the Maniacs I’ve seen. I notice that the neckline on the Hospital mask is shorter than the neckline on the Maniac, and that the hairline is lower on the back Hospital mask, creating almost a “mane” look to it. Perhaps a subtle nod by Chris Zephro to the origin of the mask.
Just as with the Elrod mask in comparison to the Psycho, the pull of the Hospital mask is thinner than the pull of my Maniac. As it was with my Psycho VS Elrod review, I’m unsure if this is simply something unique to my copy, or if they’re all like that. I also notice that while the pinhole on the Hospital mask does have some weathering on it, it doesn’t have full weathering on it like on some of TOTS’s other masks.
Finally, the hair. Some have likened the hair to a more Halloween: Resurrection type hair job than one typically found on this sculpt. The hair of the Hospital mask is frizzy, a lot like the hair on my Maniac, and an extremely dark brown, like the hair on my own head. The hair on my Maniac has a black/brown duo toned, short style that is easily managed, but could be longer. The hair on the Hospital mask is likely the same type used in TOTS Halloween 6 mask. Like their Halloween 6 mask, the hair on the Hospital mask is folded inwards on the hair line, producing a very independant looking style that makes me expect more good things from the company in the future.
haha but great points made here. I think its safe to say that no matter wht some people have to say about TOTS and their masks, this hobby is very lucky to have someone like them to bring high quality mass produced masks to our market! And what impresses me most is that as they have gone along, their work and quality have gone up, not down!