Also, did the white paint on Matt’s Kirk deteriorate the same way as it did on the Hero? It’s difficult to tell, I guess it depends on one’s perspective. In my perspective, in some way, it did.
After years of getting information, absolutely none of these masks seen above were made by Don Post Studios or knowingly given out by Don Post, Jr… Don Post Studios did not send out any mask looking like that to anyone; first off it wouldn’t have happened if Don was there and 2nd…it would have strictly been a regular Capt. Kirk. Theft at one time was happening at DPS, even with security there, things were being stolen, misuse of molds and unauthorized pulls were happening. But, that is another story; sad you can’t trust people.
I can tell you this…Mr. Patino worked for DPS at one time and was a very destructive individual who, on many occasions: stole, lied and destroyed items knowingly.
…My thoughts exactly!
None of those are Kirks and none of those were H2 spares. They look more like the crap you see in the stores today.
PS-It’s Steve Patino not Rick.
From another thread where I wrote the info below. Oh, and Steve is dead…so, there’s one hint out of the way.
Every-time I tried getting some info on whatever happened to the Kirk mold it always led 1 certain mask collector; someone well regarded in the general mask collecting world. I’ve talked to 3 past DPS employees and this one collector and a friend of his, who worked at DPS at one time; their names always were popping up. Sadly, the one who worked at DPS is dead and that person is whom I believe had the mold in his possession and was hiding it for the main person who originally stole it or gave him the idea to steal it. (That’s the gray area.)
I brought this up with Don about a year ago and asked him about the former employee who worked there who had died and asked would he had done it and he said it “Wouldn’t have surprised if he had it, did it.”
That’s interesting, so you are implying Steve Patino was the one who made “unauthorized pulls” from the '75 Kirk mold and finished them up quickly then sold them underground?
Also, where did you get your old '75? Why would Don Post, Jr. said that they had a “few left”? Could they have been blank pulls that Don Post, Jr. was referring to and someone finished them up quickly? After hearing your story on Steve Patino, I wonder if the mold for '75 Kirk was also sold at his Estate sale after his passing…
Edit: I keep saying Rick Patino, he’s a NCAA basketball coach for Louisville Cardinals in my state. The NCAA basketball tournament is messing up my mind. LOL.
Wow that was a mind-blowing read (I even took the time to read most of those court documents)! I have never heard this backstory on the Hero. I always thought it was he good ol’ handiwork of TLW, but I guess a lot of this does add up… 
Implying yes…him and several other “tight knit” friends.
I got mine from a well known mask collector who told me an elaborate, incorrect story of it.
I know this…you really just don’t call up Don Post and talk to him; that’s not how it happens. I don’t know who his mom talked to but no one would have received any mask(s) left over from Halloween II, they went to the set. “If” she talked to someone, a deal was done without Don knowing and under the table. DPS would have NEVER let those masks get released looking like they do.
My opinion, the mold is out there.
It might have been Steve Patino or one of his friends, then. Matt told me that it was Don Post, Jr., We will never know for sure.
If someone finds the mold, it will probably be you. 
This is a superb hub of info this thread! Thanks for all this great info!! 
Bumping up this older thread as I remembered I had a Bill Malone interview saved that talks about the creation of the mask.
This may be news to some of you, but if there was no Malone, Michael Myers may well have been a very different babysitter stalking madman. We asked him to elaborate a bit on this.
“I get asked about this a lot, and I wish I had some great story of its creation. The truth is it was a very minor event during my time at Don Post Studios [Ed. Note: a company most famous for creating rubber masks for commercial sale and use in movies]. Fearing that we were going to lose our license from Universal, which included a great deal of our output, we were looking for new characters to license. We actually wanted to put out the monsters from ‘Star Trek’, which included the Salt Vampire, the Gorin, and several others. To do that, we were contractually obligated to do Kirk and Spock. We got hold of life casts of the actors from makeup wizard Mike Westmore, I think, and I used those castings as a basis to sculpt Kirk and Spock. We couldn’t use the actual life masks as they would have been too small when reproduced as masks. Sometime later John Carpenter and several others came in and asked if we could paint one of the Kirk masks white and spray the hair black. The mask was pulled from the production line and taken back to the paint department. I don’t recall who actually painted it… it may have been [head painter] Rob Tharpe. Because it was not a standard paint job, it was painted with a special paint that was a good deal more durable than the usual paints. I know there are bunches of die-hard fans saying, ‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about’ because the hair is not black in the film. The hair was painted with black lacquer and would have fallen off quickly. I noticed it when I went to see the film first run.”
“In any case, I think it’s interesting that everyone thinks it’s so scary. It shows the power of suggestion and the power of a great director at the top of his game. The mask is really not scary at all. If anything, it’s just nondescript. It’s the context it’s placed in that makes it scary.”
I also recall reading another older interview with him where he states he knows who took the mold.
weird that the stunt mask is in that BTW photo with the little kid…whenever i pause it…it looks just like the hero on the actual movie…but there would be no reason to use a stunt mask in a picture…weird.
Great thread man, these pics gave me goose bumps, what a spin out, 
Luxy.
Now this is a great post.
Actually Nik started using some blue in his finishing in masks and also,my H2 stunt mask proto from Justin has plenty of blue which is amazing.It doesn’t really show up in photos but that is the whole point 
Great post,Billy
Someone needs to get John, Tommy Lee, Don and others together and settle the origins of the mask… same should be done for Halloween 4, what I heard is that DPS were asked to make Kirks for the film but the filmmakers were too impatient.
Cool topic, interesting!! 
Some final thoughts on this (imo) I don’t think any blue paint / tint or otherwise was added to these masks. Dean Cundy added that with the lighting. If it showed up 20 years later, maybe it’s the cheap latex/paint / reaction DPS used. The part that gets me is this. If the “Hero” is the main mask used and used in all of the close-ups, it wouldn’t have been the spray painted mask TLW did, because in the close-ups and behind the scenes pics, you would have seen the cracks in the spray paint. On the other hand, most of the principal filming of the mask was done at a great distance, and in these parts of the film, you wouldn’t have noticed the cracks in the paint. From the phone scene forward, it has to be one of the DPS masks that they made for the movie. And the behind the scenes pics that are up close, it has to be one of the DPS made masks because again, you would have seen the cracks. I spray painted a 98 Shatner 12 years ago and it cracked up real good and was noticeable from several feet away. So are we any closer to solving the mysteries surrounding this mask or have we just added to them??
Perhaps the white was just a cool white, something like in the higher color range past the neutral white range of around 4,500k, maybe towards 7,000k (at least going by artificial light standards). That would leave the mask as being white but the white having a natural subtle blue tint to it that certain lighting conditions would bring out more. I painted a Jason hock with a cool white color (in a higher kelvin than I’d suspect the Hero to have been in) and in direct daylight it looks white, but in the shade or on an overcast day you start to see hints of blue.
I think that explains my life long belief that there was never any “weathering” on the H1 mask other then flesh tones not painted and bleeding through. The weathering occurred on the mask in H2 because of neglect and usage. ALL of the H1 footage and stills prove this. The H1 mask was stark white period with alot of flesh tones on the neck. Just like I had Chris do my latest 75K Supreme. ALL of the “featues” of the mask in H1 were due to Dean Cundey’s lighting.
There are too many great opinions here and most likely a whole slew of facts that we may never uncover regarding The HERO and it’s origin… 
Either way, awesome thread folks! 
- I have a couple of quick questions for you Billy if you don’t mind me asking, and you may have answered these a thousand times over so please forgive me if I’m beating a dead horse here…
Do you know what sequence the school house scene was shot in ? (towards the beginning or the ending of the filming)
Also, does any of your unseen footage and or images (HI or HII) show any stunt or alternate masks ? If so, do they look anything like or as bad as the alleged DPS converted masks in those pics that surfaced?
My 2 cents even though I will get attacked.
Im a photographer and a graphic artist, it does appear to me that the blue gels on the light give it the blueish tone, the mask was not weathered, it was white over flesh which rubbed off, then it sat under a bed…and i used to make masks so i know how crazy the latex can go just sitting in light. I also think that the paint used was glossy cause the mask has a shine to it in the first movie. Maybe it was sprayed by DPS with latex paint, and yes spray paint would crack like crazy
Maybe touched up as shooting went, cause it looks all white in some pics with no flesh and then all of sudden flesh starts showing up more
Im sure it was touched up after cleaning off red food dyed syrup blood.
They had cheap latex masks, i have seen latex turn orange/red if next to a window. Film stock for inside lighting is matched to a lower kelvin, and the daylight film is balanced for outdoors which now of course we dont really need with white balance
Plus the fact that the mask got dirty from being in everyones hands, pockets, grass, …etc
I included some pics i took of the FEAR im selling, that i took in my studio with a white balanced DSLR and a white strobe and another strobe with a blue gel on it, Snootchie Bootchies
