Good evening everyone. I posted recently asking about the rubies H4 and ended up ordering one. Came home from New York City this afternoon to have an amazon box waiting for me. Inside was a very folded, misshapen mask with not much character, but a lot of potential. I immediately got to work on my overhaul.
I started off by putting the mask on a mannequin head (this was tough, this mask is SMALL!) I extended the slit up the back of the mask and hole punched the end to make it a little easier to get on and off both my own head as well as the mannequin. I then used a heat gun on the lowest setting a good distance from the mask in order to reshape the creased, folded face, all the while taking care not to keep heat on a certain area for too long. This worked well.
I then drew out the rough shape of the new eye cuts using a movie reference pic. Cut them out with sharp scissors, sanded the edges with a dremel, and that was about it.
After I was happy with the eyes i moved onto misting the hair with black spray paint. The hair is actually decent. It’s very soft and covers the whole head well. It’s held on by hot glue, however, which as you know is not a preferred hair adhesive, but it’ll do for now. I TRIED to avoid the white paint with the black, but I accepted the fact that there was bound to be overspray. This was easily fixed with some white acrylic paint mixed 50/50 with some liquid latex. I painted over the whole face with the white, then I went on to repaint the eyebrows for a more accurate size and shape using brown and black acrylic mixed with latex. Now for the finishing touches.
I used a paper blending stub (for charcoal drawings) with some residual charcoal left on the tip to create a “shadow” on the proper left side of the mouth, as I thought the mouth was a little too narrow and puckered. I also extended the mouth slit slightly. Finally, I trimmed the neck, painted the edges of the eye cuts black, and put a good amount of hairspray on the hair to keep it in place. Now enough talking, onto the pics.
So my overall thoughts after having this mask in hand and working on it, I’m actually impressed for the most part. Especially for a mass produced mask (from Rubies, no less). The sculpt isn’t spot on, but it can work. In my personal opinion, the only real downfalls of this mask are the mouth and the fact that it comes folded in half. The shape can be fixed, the mouth however cannot, but it CAN be altered slightly with paint or various other techniques. At least enough to where it makes a passable H4. Is it the best mask ever? Of course not. But for it being the only mass produced H4 available (for now) and for a whopping $38 delivered to your front door, you can’t beat it. Anyone with a little know-how and some scissors can take a cheap mask and turn it into a decent representation of the film and a piece that they could be proud to display in a collection or wear around the block on the big night.
If any of you made it this far in reading my long post/review, thanks for stopping by to check it out! As always, feedback is welcomed and appreciated. Thanks everyone!
Thanks man! I’m pretty thrilled with how it came out! I keep thinking that there’s something off about the eye cuts, but then again there was something off with the eye cuts on the hero. So I can live with it lol. I’m half tempted to try out a rubies H5 but I’m not sure how I feel about the sculpt on that one at all
Slash you did a hell of a job man, Sounds like you definitely had your hands full from the start but overall you turned this thing into something great!
That turned out really good. Very respectable H4! Great job man!! I think the eye cuts are just fine, like you said, perfect eyes would be inaccurate haha
I really appreciate that man, thank you! That’s a huge compliment.
I would love to do an H5, just have to look at some pics of it and try to figure out what i wanna do
-Mike
EDIT:
Just ordered the Rubies H5 from amazon. It’ll be here tomorrow. I think I could do something with it. Gonna be harder than the H4, but I’m excited to check it out
Already have some things in mind! I’m gonna try to take some progress/before and after pics of the H5 if I remember. Something i wish i would’ve done for the 4
That turned out really good. Very respectable H4! Great job man!! I think the eye cuts are just fine, like you said, perfect eyes would be inaccurate haha