Hello! I love your Iori cosplay (boy does not get enough love)! Your mask is especially impressive. Would you mind telling where you got it or how you made it if you did? :)
Thank you! I was ridiculously happy that I wasn’t the only one at AX. I found one other regular Iori and then one transformed Iori. I saw a picture of a second transformed one though, which was exciting.
I made my mask. Sorry if I’m a bit rambly. I tend to get overly excited when explaining stuff or when people seem interesting in how I did something or how something works.
I sculpted it out of urethane foam (2 pound) and then we did a two vacuum form pulls. One out of a super thin sheet of styrene to even out the texture and so that the foam wouldn’t be able to stick in the plastic and then one of 1/16th” PETG. Which is a common plastic that’s pretty cheap/easy to get in big clear sheets. This was actually a mistake on my part. I’d never made a key for vacuum forming before. My key would have been completely fine if it were for an opaque piece but because of the mask being basically clear I really should have made a hard key. On the other hand because there are undercuts to the mask it was a good thing my key ended up being something I could scoop out. I kinda like the mild texture I got to the mask on the inside so I’m not sure if I’m going to change it in future or not. I could just buff the inside forever and get it back to an even clear but I may just leave it and fix it on the next one if I make another one.
After prying out the foam and styrene key I cleaned it and cut it out then cut where the actual edges go and finished off all my edges then dyed it orange. I’m not really happy with the orange it is now because I was in a hurry before the con and didn’t have time to fix it. You can dye PETG with Idye poly by following the dye instructions but instead of sitting your plastic in the pot do a few quick test pieces like you would if you were trying to tint fabric and then once you know exactly how long you need you can dye your actual piece. This will also tell you if the heat for the time you need is too much for your plastic and might cause it to warp. If it does cause your test pieces to warp you can put it in for a shorter period of time, pull it out, let the piece cool, then dip it again. Just make sure you rinse it REALLY FAST after you dip it. I didn’t rinse one of my dips quite fast enough and got a very faint streaking in part of it. For reference I only had to hold my mask under for under 30 seconds. During that time I swished it around a little so that it wouldn’t settle. I was also holding it with a pair of metal tongs.
I didn’t have any Idye poly orange so I used yellow and red and even though I dumped in all of my yellow and only the slightest bit of red (I desolved both in separate water baths first, disposable plastic storage containers that are about to be thrown out anyway are GREAT for this) it ended up being far too red. Thankfully I can fix this later by just making a new batch of yellow and dipping it in that. I purposefully made my mask a little under saturated so I could redip it later and get more of a true orange.
The holes in the mask were cut using a dremel tool. I didn’t finish my edges with the dremel though because the tool heats up just enough that it caused the plastic to not shave evenly and so my edges were finished using a box cutter. I wouldn’t recommend doing that though unless you have extremely steady hands and are very comfortable with exacto knives and box cutters already. Before I got a ceramic squared off safety knife for it I used to remove seams on BJDs and resin figure kits with an exacto and I work slow and am kind of obsessive. It’s really easy to hurt yourself or take off too much or make really uneven scraped lines on curves if you do it with a knife. So while, it’s slower and requires more stuff if you aren’t skilled enough with a box cutter to cut mitered corners on mat board, I’d suggest using sand paper and working your way to a finer and finer grit till it has the texture you want.
If you use urethane foam for anything always wear a protective mask and I would also suggest wearing some sort of gloves. Gloves aren’t strictly needed but it can help you keep from getting urethane dust under your fingernails. You really don’t want to accidentally ingest it. Working outside in a ventilated area is also important. If you have a workshop that you can hose down the floor of and that gets good air flow that’s fine too. But whatever you do don’t work on it in your house. It’s one of those things were you might be ok for awhile but it’ll cause heath problems down the line and it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Do not use a pot you plan on using again for food with Idye. The safety warnings on their website are very clear about this and after you smell it you’ll see why. For that same reason and also to preserve your sink color, do not dump your dye down the kitchen sink or the bath tub. You also want to dye in a place that is well ventilated. I opened the back door (which leads directly to my kitchen) and had a fan on.
When using a dremel wear a mask and eye protection. There will be lots of little bits of stuff flying around. You should also do this outside/in a dedicated workshop. Sometimes I wear gloves and a long sleeved shirt. Only cause you can get tiny particles of stuff flying very quickly and it can sting if it hits bare skin. Once again though this depends on the materials. Some materials you just always want to wear gloves around.
Ending notes: I may end up making another one of these. I feel like it’s a little too big and I have to make new screws for it anyway since the largest ones I could find were just too small. Originally I was planning on taking pictures during the whole process but then AX was looming ahead of me and I ended up doing a lot very quickly. If I do I’ll try to take pictures as I go. If not I’ll at least have some vacuum form progress stuff up sometime before October. Me and a friend are building our own unit at the start of next month and I should be working on a costume with lots of weird pieces by then. From start to finish this mask took about 7 hours I think. Though it was done in tiny chunks over several days while I was doing other stuff.
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