The Eternal Darkness - Grave Tusken - The Creation Of The Mask

The creation of the mask

Originally I wanted to make a latex mask for this costume, but since the game model textures show the Grave Tuskens have a human-like hairline, I thought that I might as well make a half-mask out of fiberglass instead of having to punch hair into a latex mask. I knew that I had to make a face cast in order to make this mask and experimented with many methods to make one until I finally got the idea how to make a mold that worked.

Since there are no products sold to make face casts where I live, I had to improvise in order to make a mold of my own face.

To do this I had to brush hot melted wax all over my face, something that did hurt a bit, but I'm not made of kitten-milk or something.

Now that the Grave Tusken mask is finished, it sure looks like those evil aliens that used to shoot at me in the video game Jedi Knight, and it takes me back to those days when video game playing had plenty of time and I had just started making this costume. Now after getting more space and time for my projects, this long awaited costume could finally be finished. Feel free to use any ideas from this tutorial, and good luck making your own Grave Tusken mask.

Project details

Project duration - 9 days.

Costs spent - $27 USD.

Accidents - Nothing serious enough to remember anyway.

Thanks to

The creators of Dark Forces II - Jedi Knight.

The designers of the Grave Tusken game model.

Z-man12 for reference photos and game model texture files.

Guan Mau International for the USD LED lights.

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After half my face had been covered with wax, I reinforced it with fiberglass sheets to prevent the fragile wax from cracking apart.

The rest of the face except the eyes was also covered with fiberglass reinforced wax.

Once my face was fully covered and I could peal the face mold off, it was placed in cold water for some while to harden.

Only 3/4 of my eyebrows were left after this process.

To fill in the eyes, I held my fingertip next to the open edges, then brushed it with melted wax to shape and close the eye areas.

After both eyes had been shaped, more wax was brushed onto the face mold to make it stronger.

A layer of fiberglass bondo was first applied into the face mold, covered by polyester in fiberglass sheets.

And so the face cast was completed and also looking a whole lot like me.

A raised edge of clay was made around the face cast for where the lines of the final mask should be.

Clay was also added to the mouth area to give the final mask more clearance inside.

A few layers of casting rubber was brushed over the face cast so that the final mash wouldn't stick to it when being made.

A layer of fiberglass bondo was applied over the face cast.

After the first layer of bondo had hardened, a second layer was applied and shaped more to the features of a Grave Tusken's face.

Unfortunately the face cast didn't release itself that well from the mask, so it had to be cracked apart.

Fortunately for me I already have another face and can probably just fix this one some other time in case I would need it for some other project.

After the eye openings and other holes had been made, a final layer of fiberglass bondo was applied to finish off the shape of the mask.

A layer of standard bondo was applied to smooth out the surface of the mask.

Before the skin color was painted on, some shadow effects and veins were painted onto the face to make it look more realistic once the skin color had been painted on.

After the skin color was painted on, a tool with a toothed wheel was rolled over the face to make small pore looking features, then it was rolled over the nose several times to give it the right texture that noses like that should have.

A layer of contrast enhancing goo was wiped all over the face mask to bring out all the pores and wrinkles.

The mask was made a little more brown to match the color of the game model, then the paint was sealed with a shoe shining brush.

Two crossing elastic cords were tied to the mask to hold it in place on my own face.

The leather helmet that they wear was first made out of paper to get the shapes and measurements right before making it out of leather.

After the paper helmet was good enough, it was cut apart to act as templates for the leather pieces that were then cut to the same shapes.

The gray area of the helmet was made of several pieces of leather that were sewn together to give it the same look as the game model.

White shoe-polish was brushed into the brown leather to make it grey like the original.

The ear sections of the helmet were sewn on separately to look the same as the original.

A small loop of leather was also added to the front of the helmet to look like the original.

After both the front and back pieces were done, they were sewn together.

The grey leather piece was then sewn onto the rest of the helmet from the inside.

A hole punching tool was used to give the ear sections the same holes as on the original.

A pen was used to mark off where my eyes were underneath the front of the helmet, then those areas were cut open with a sharp knife.

Two moon shaped pieces of metal were cut out and bent to the shape of the eye shields.

The eye shields were glued onto the helmet with contact adhesive.

After the eye shields had been secured into place, the excess leather underneath them could be removed, and the nose flap was cut into the right shape.

A hem was sewn all around the leather helmet.

A piece of bent metal wire was used to give the back hem the right shape before it was permanently sewn that way.

The aerator was made out of two aluminum sheets that had been hammered to the right curves, then the inner piece was painted black.

To make the aerator sit properly in the mouth, a small piece of flexible white vinyl was glued to the inside of it.

Another aluminum sheet was hammered to the shape of the piece underneath the aerator, then it was covered with crimped leather to look the same as on both the Grave Tuskens and their previous form as Tusken Raiders.

The part was glued onto the aerator with super epoxy and secured even more with fiberglass bondo.

The inside of the aerator was lined with fabric coated foam to prevent it from scraping up the face mask.

I figured out that if I had made a solid metal hose for the aerator in the shape that it should have, it would not be possible to get it over my head, so to solve this problem I used two flexible metal hoses from a couple of USB lights.

And of course I had to test the lights before pealing them both apart.

So far they worked pretty good.

The USB plug was ripped apart without destroying the main parts because I just might need plugs like this for something in the future.

The LED's were also carefully removed from the hoses to use for some other future project.

The front of the glowing areas were cut off, leaving behind a small edge that was perfect for holding them in place inside the aerator.

And so the hoses were attached to the aerator and could be moved to any position desired.

After one of the hoses had been pulled through the back of the leather helmet, both of them were cut to the right length and soldered together.

After pulling the aerator hoses over my head, they could simply be bent to hold the aerator in place.