A Semi-comprehensive guide to domino masks (Part 1)
Something I want to spend some time doing with this blog outside of doccumenting my own custom killjoy costume, is talking about the costumes and props from the music videos. Specifically breaking down pieces, talking about where they came from, what theyre inspired by, and in the cases where its applicable, what every day or pre-existing items were transformed to make the world of the fabulous killjoys.
Firstly, lets talk about one of the most iconic things from the music videos, the domino mask.
Domino masks started their fame in Venitian carnival in the 18th century as part of a domino costume, which comprised of the half mask and a cloak. They likely pre-date this popularity, but I dont want to bog down this post with excessive history as its already going to be long. Since then Domino masks have become prevelent in western pop-culture as the classic "robber mask" and later as the quintessential superhero mask.
In the Art is the Weapon and NaNaNa videos, at least seven domino masks were made for the music video, of which two are worn by killjoys, Gerard's classic yellow, blue and black party poison mask, and Ray's Blue and red jet star mask.
Party Poison's mask is the only one we have extensive references of thanks to the NaNaNa lyric video. It is made from a yellow domino with black triangles applied above and below the eyes, these triangles have a slight fabric texture similar to the masks themselves which leads me to believe believe they're made of cut up domino masks. There are blue glitter-paper dots on the forehead and "cheeks".
Jet Star's mask is made of a dark blue Domino mask with red oval details applied around the eyes which have the eyes and clown-style triangles cut out (on some masks of this design it almost looks like a 4 pointed star cutout more than an eyes and triangles cut out). Its really hard to tell what these are made from due to lack of decent references but they look like EVA foam, maybe some kind of fabric with stiff interfacing, or maybe cut outs off of other masks as seems to be the case with the poison one.
The other five masks we know of are two black ones, one red, one white and one yellow. All appear to be in the style of Jet Star's mask, though on some you can only see hints of the top of the ovals aince theyre stacked up to the side of the shot. Both of the black seem to have yellow ovals (I can catch a quick glympse of yellow on the very back one in the video these are from), the yellow has light blue ovals, the white has pale green ovals, and the red has white ovals. I'm assuming the blue mask in this screenshot Is Ray's and you can see a hint of red in the video to back this up.
"But Vi, I've seen Fun Ghoul and Kobra Kid masks and Jet stars doesnt look like you're describing!"
This is where the officially liscenced masks come in. For the California 2019 Deluxe box set, two new things were added to the peripheral of the Killjoys canon, the officially liscenced masks, and the bad luck beads (I'll talk about the beads in the future). The officially liscenced masks are a whole different creature, I dont know what their design origins are, but one thing I do know is that they have nothing to do with the video other than design inspiration as far as I'm aware.
Gerard and Ray's masks don't match their on screen ones, Frank and Mikeys seem to be entirely new. Gerard's is yellow with black oval, red clown makeup and no dots, Frank's is white with green clown makeup and an X over one eye, Ray's is blue with purple ovals (though some pics look more burgandy or red) and light blue clown makeup, and Mikey's is red with black clown makeup.
More importantly, theyre all 2D printed designs directly onto the fabric of the mask, where as all of the masks for the videos have a 3D element to the designs, fheyre all raised. This is obviously just to make them easier to manufacture. As for the designs on screen being raised? I believe this is due to the fact that these fabric masks dont paint very well, edges bleed badly and painting on them is kinda a pain in the ass. I still have no idea why Ray and Gee's are different. Ray's sorta makes sense, not a lot of references and its similar enough that it could just be a best guess interpretation of the one on screen, but Gee's really bugs me 🤣.
All of these officially liscenced masks were made into 2D paper masks for Battery City Underground, the launch event for the 15th anniversary of Danger Days in London.
Fans will reguarly use the Ghoul, Kobra and Jet masks as they appear in the 2019 boxset (and later for individual purchase) as the canon representation of the masks, especially since Jet's on screen mask is more promenant in Art is the Weapon and may have been left out of NaNaNa alltogether so the blue and red version is less associated with him (I'd need to analize every shot of Jet in the video to be sure, which I cannot be bothered doing 🤣) fans treating the Jet boxset mask as the canon design bothers me a little since his mask is different on screen but the Kobra and Ghoul masks seem reasonable.
The final detail in the world of killjoy masks is non canon, but I believe very useful for people making custom Killjoy masks. The Planetary Go! music video.
These were custom made and handed out to fans in the audiance for the filming of the music video and honestly I'm in love. They look like the costume designer custom painted the base colour of the masks (theyre unusual colours for store bought masks and have variance and depth in thenintensity of colour) then hand painted/glittered the details, this is basically the only way you can easily hand paint these kinda masks is by first spray painting a base coat or sealing them with matt clear coat first to saturate the fibres and prevent bleed, but I'll be getting into that in more detail in a future post. This is the first time we see the use of smaller domino masks that are more like classic super hero masks than classic Venitian domino masks. I find these masks from planetary go are a vetter source of inspiration for custom killjoy masks since theres a little more uniqueness to them, different designs and shapes, etc.
Sources: Wikipedia (for domino stuff), Art is the Weapon teaser video, NaNaNa music video, Planetary GO! music video. Making of NaNaNa video. Official MCR marketing Material, official MCR twitter accounts, BTS photos archive (i forget who made it or the sources of some specific pictures sorry!)
None of these photos are mine, sadly I dont know who took any of them, many are screenshots of videos, others are marketing/product photos.
Thats all for now folks. Tune in for next time (follow for future posts 🤣) when I detail different brands of the classic domino mask, which ones might be best for you in particular, and how to customise them.
For now this is Vi signing off.
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