How I made Darkness - Mask

The mask I used was one I found on-line. Unfortunately it was at best an approximation of the Darkness character but at least I had something. It looked more like a Klingon with a bad sunburn.

I decided to attach the mask on the headpiece. I couldn't think of a way to wear them separately without a big seam showing or something.

I hacked it to pieces to get rid of the ridges and shriveled up little horns. I did save all the pieces I sliced up as I used them for odds and ends as I put it all together.

Notice the chin strap. It was a piece of cotton pants waist band. I used that because the elastic in the waist band gave it some stretch and the cotton cloth was soft. It actually fit under my jaw and not over my chin as the latex long chin piece goes there! I drilled holes below the temples in front of the space cut for my ears. It was attached with small flat head screws and a nut on the outside. (That part would be covered with the mask so I wasn't worried if it stuck out.)

I super glued the brow to the the headpiece. All the slices were then glued into place until I got the shape I wanted. Some of the pieces that made the ridges from the original mask I bought were used to connect sides of the cheek bones to the horn sockets. Nothing wasted! I put a piece of foam down the middle and used a ridge shaped piece and glued it over to have the crest affect.

Once I had everything the way I wanted or as close to the movie Darkness as I could ever possibly make it look like, I used a flat red spray paint as a base for the latex paint. This was important as I found out latex paint DOES NOT adhere over non porous surfaces like smooth fiberglass.

Here is my first attempt. Not pretty.

So once I had a nice even coat of spray paint as the base, the latex paint went over it perfectly.

For the back of the neck, I used a flat paper-like foam sheets used in the packing material in computer boxes. Man was that stuff handy! I used it for many pieces of the costume.

I did not like the way the cheek bones sat on my face. I cut them out and replaced them with soft foam latex cheek bones off a skull mask I had laying around. Once cut and fitted into place I glued them and painted them with the red latex. Much better and more realistic fit. (they were green because I had used them in a Frankenstein costume last year.)

When fitted, I felt it looked pretty good.