This is just a useful group of some of the latex masks I've made that we set up as a convention display. It's quite handy for demonstrating my approach to prosthetics.
Eventually I'll get the full costumes up on Flickr as well; I've a mountain of pictures and it takes time to process them all.
Extreme Left- Star Trek Ferengi. The special head gear that frames this one makes it a lot easier to put on, with hardly any blending make-up required.
I reckon the same thing occurred to the Star Trek make-up department, since a lot of on-screen Ferengi ended up with back-of-head and neck coifs. I was inspired to do the front face 'frame' by certain elements of Japanese armour as well as the head gear worn by the Wolfriders in the Elfquest comics!
Disguising blending lines with additional costume elements is my favourite technique for walk-around costumes. It's a nuisance to be continually fussing with make-up 'in-the-field', especially when you don't have a crew of on-call make-up assistants to rush up and put you through an emergency pit-stop! I also enjoy the process of creating the additional costume pieces, which tend to be quite elaborate and (small surprise) often involve leather and/or metal.
Extreme Right- My second basic Star Trek Klingon crest-appliance with wig.
The Ferengi experience informed the choice of the leather, studded headband. The jewelled eye-patch grew out of the character, Lord High Admiral (For maximum pomposity you can't beat a Gilbert And Sullivan title!) Gunarhk Moirai of the Imperial Klingon Warfleet.
Back in my hard-core Star Trek fandom days I used to enjoy creating a character for fan-fiction, which would sometimes lead to making a sculpted figurine and/or a costume. Anyway, old Gunarhk lost his eye to an atomic blast. I know, quite primitive by Star Trek standards, but there y'go! By a suspicious coincidence, Star Trek Klingons started turning up with eyepatches around the time I did this costume...General Chang in Star Trek VI being the first I recall. To a Klingon, everything is suspicious....
The wig was commercial synthetic hair, a very fine, expensive grade. I got a couple of different shades and blended it together to get the light colour I wanted, which was very different from my then dark coloured hair. It's attached to the headband of the prosthetic for ease of application. Yes, it does tend to get caught between the segments of the armoured yoke on the Klingon costume but since it's not my hair it doesn't hurt! Which a real Klingon would probably grumble about...
Front-A later Klingon appliance, straight from the mold, with no additional colouring or metalwork.
I eventually promoted the Gunahrk character to Klingon Emperor (by the power vested in me by no one in particular) and decided to give him a new style of head crest. This one was heavily influenced by dinosaur skull ridges; Jurassic Park was big at the time! The appliance has additional, sculpted in scars, lots of slashes, projectile and energy weapon wounds. I very much doubt Klingons would go in for cosmetic surgery, except for espionage purposes. Still, I don't wear an eyepatch with this appliance, so I reckon Gunarhk got himself a transplant...but then he probably found having one eye an inconvenience in battle....
The final appliance has a lot of scale armour riveted to the ridges; wicked!
Both the Klingon appliances came out of double piece molds, the split being right down the centre line of the mold. Of course, once removed from the head cast and sculpted positive the mold halves were rejoined for the latex pour.
The two masks behind the new Klingon appliance in the foreground are from the same mold. The one on the right is my Goblin mask, created for my Labyrinth movie inspired Goblin armour. The tusks are made out of oven-fired Fimo modelling clay, and the mouth opens and closes a little so the tusks clash together. The mask to the immediate left of the new Klingon appliance is from the same Goblin mold, but I poured several different colours of tinted latex in over time to produce an odd effect, sort of like blending different coloured plasticine together. This mask wasn't very durable, and I took advantage of subsequent tears in it by stitching them up with big, evil looking leather thonging. It came in handy as a generic monster mask...not a thousand Hobbit feet removed from an Orc really.
Both of these masks were mounted onto industrial face-shield head harnesses, which I like to use because once the mask is strapped on you never have to touch it again, and if you've set it up right you can even pivot the mask up and out of the way if you want to take a breather. A fine way to be off your face!
The big full head appliance at the rear of the display, right in the middle, is my Predator mask, certainly the most complex molding I've done for a mask, at least so far. It came from a 16 piece mold, and the positive took a month or so to sculpt in clay. The tusks are made from more Fimo. If I did this again I'd probably switch to Super Sculpey, though for bigger tusks, horns and so on I use yet another material. The 'Rasta' tentacles are made from sawdust filled cloth tubes, painted with latex and acrylic.
The mask was inspired by the first Predator movie and by the Dark Horse Alien Versus Predator comics. Eventually I rebuilt the costume to reflect the latter.