Duskull's Mask From Pokemon

Duskull is one of my favorite Pokemon and recently when the Pokemon go community day for October came up I remembered how cool Duskull's mask actually is. I had actually made one of these a year ago but it was really poorly done, so I took this as a challenge this year to see how much I've improved. And along the way I'll show you how you can make a mask of your own.

1.) 3D printer

2.) Filament

3.) Velcro

4.) 2mm Foam

5.) Hot Glue

6.) Black and Brown paint

7.) Black Cambric (The Fabric for the Eyes)

8.) Small Screws

I sourced the base of the mask from Thingiverse user: "herzreh" who had made a duskull model that could be separated into parts, the part I used was the mask. You can find the model here, but after doing some tinkering in blender I created a modified version with a rough texture you can download the edited version here, the only difference between the 2 is mine is rough and more realistic and herzreh's is smoother and has a little bit of a seam down the middle, so choosing which mask to make is up to you.

Once you've chosen which version of the mask you'd like to make we can get into the printer settings. I used Cura for my slicing program and set the scale 664.49% so it would fit my face but you should measure your face to ensure yours fits. Once its scaled up you can fiddle with the print settings I had:

• Supports: Yes (Auto-Generated)
• Infill: 15%
• Layer Height: 0.08 mm
• Speed: 100%

The rest are default to Cura but you can fiddle with them how ever you like. For instance if you want less layer lines and a tougher model use smaller layer lines. But once you've fiddled enough with your model we can put the G-code into the printer and get to printing.

This step is self explanatory but just wait until the mask prints out. It shouldn't take too long as its just one solid piece. (Ignore the mess inside the eye of the mask, one of my supports crumbled leaving that mess. But at least it printed)

When its full printed you can rip out those supports. I found my mask had some stringing though, which is an entirely new issue so to solve it I took the scraper that came with my printer and started scraping off all the stringing bits of the mask. If you do this however make sure your fingers are out of the way and you never point the blade towards yourself. With enough ripping out of the supports and scraping any leftover filament you can get a pretty clean mask that we will fix up even more in the next step.

To start we want to cover the mask in a thin layer of gap filler, sanding this will give us a rougher texture. Once the gap filler is applied in a thin layer across the mask we can let that dry for about an hour. (I left mine in the sun and that sped up the drying process). Once dry we can sand down the mask. It's okay if the sanding is a bit rough it just adds more texture. Another thing to note is I'd recommend using sandpaper and not a sanding block because sometimes it can be tough to get into the smaller spots.

I used a dremel but scratching the mask with steel wool can have a similar effect. I just wanted to rough up the mask and scratch any of the leftover gap filler that wasn't sanded off. Once it was roughed up with the steel wool or the dremel bit you can take a nail and make deeper scratches. The second image is the effect you can aim for but it's okay if it's a little more subtle no one will really notice. If you have any pockets of gap filler in the mask (As in it filled in a hole that you can't sand down very easily) scratch at it with a screw it can leave a rough dent that you can later sand down to make it look even damaged.

Here is a handy technique for aging something fast called washes. You can get some brown or black paint and add a lot of water. Then with the watery paint cover the entire mask. Once its covered you can dab off the paint with a paper towel and the leftover paint adds a nice aging effect. You can combine colors like brown and black to get a bone like color, and once you are content with the colors we can move on to some of the finishing steps!

Using the black cambric we can glue that over the eye holes. This allows us to see, but prevents people from seeing us, it's a little blurry but it works! To apply the fabric we can cut a square larger than the eye hole and add glue around the eye hole on the inside of the mask. Then stick the mesh to the the glue and wait for it to dry. When dry get an exacto knife and cut the excess fabric around the eye, we can then glue any extra fabric down around the eye so the mesh doesn't come off any time soon. Once glued repeat with the other eye, and then all you need is a strap.

There's a number of ways you can do this like using like gluing the straps with hot glue, but I drilled holes in my mask and held the straps in with screws. To make the actual straps I cut 2 mm foam strips and wrapped those around my head. I then marked the first strap and screwed that into the mask, once finished with the first strap I repeated the steps to make a second strap. With the straps screwed in I could then add Velcro to the ends of the straps and Voila it's now a wearable mask.

Tada! You finished your Duskull mask, enjoy! I think Duskull is such a cool Pokemon and I hope you all share the same sentiment. If you have made one of these I'd love to see it. It's a really cool mask. I hope you all enjoyed reading this and Happy Halloween!

Thanks for Reading!