Oh Final Fantasy… Your games are so long, you put zippers and pockets in the craziest places on outfits, but I just adore you and will probably never stop.
I have, like many other people, been waiting for Final Fantasy XV for a decade. I remember seeing a short clip of a grey haired prince taking on bunch of enemies with his defense of magical swords that surrounded him, suspended in air as he lazily walks off his throne, clearing a path through his foes to go somewhere. I didn’t need to know much more than that, I was sold. For the time, it was an incredible short and I wanted to know more about the world they envisioned that this person lived in. Flash forward 10 years and here we are. FFXV was released, it’s just as beautiful as I could have hoped and I am excited to be on this journey. Since I have been waiting so long for this I consumed every single bit of info released on this game. Including the tie-in prequel movie, Kingsglaive.
When I get excited about things I usually want to make something from it. I fell in love with the mask that the Kingsglaive wore. Specifically Nyx Ulric. Asymmetrical design with a horn thrown in. Check. Weird zippers and seams all over the hood. Check. Lots of ridiculous leather everywhere. Double Check.
Thus began my idea to make this mask. Also thank you Sqeenix for releasing the official high def costume guide here.
My goal was to eventually attach this to a hood and have it move up and back. When sculpting I kept this in mind using a base that I knew would allow me to do this, such as a face shield that you can pick up for 15 bucks at harbor freight.
It’s hard to see in these pictures but I marked where my eyes and the bridge of my nose was on the face shield so I had it for scale. I then drew one half of the mask on the shield, traced that half with tracing paper, and flipped it over to the other side so it would all be symmetrical. Also why I wanted to use something clear and meant to go over a face.
I sculpted the horn on a flat surface as it is straight and didn’t need to be curved.
I spent 2 seasons of Drag Race, all of Ghost in the Shell, and Howl’s moving castle sculpting this. I spent extra time focusing on symmetry and smoothing this out so I didn’t have to do a lot of clean up on it after it was molded. This is a heavily detailed and fragile piece, so sanding needed to be kept to a minimum on this.
Garrick then took it, molded it and cast me up a few pieces to play with. I cleaned them up and we primed it in gloss black and did the finish in Alclad Airframe Aluminum. I.am.so.floored.with.how.this.came.out!
The picture above it of all of the pieces for the mask. I had the fabric portion of the mask printed on fabric at spoonflower and I sculpted the side pieces (that you barely see under the hood) that the fabric attaches to as well.
Once this was done and multiple happy dances later, I started on the hood pattern. I used a generic hood pattern I had and drew all the crazy seams and weirdness that is on this kingsglaive one. (The king must spend a FORTUNE on seamstress work with how complicated some of these designs are)
This shows the general progression of my sewing, cutting, and sewing everything back together after I drew it all out. I then used this pattern on the fabric I had planned for it. I also found some grey heavy weight twill tape online to use for the side designs.
I then wanted to be able to put the mask on the hood and have it look floated like it does in the movie but also be able to be moved up to the top of the head. I made a band that sits on the head with fosshape. I steamed it so it was stiff. After this I glued some thin styrene to the ends where i had to punch holes for the screw posts. I then put screws on the inside of the mask and held those in place with epoxy. There is a screw on either side so it can be moved up to the head and even back on the neck. It’s all very light and how I positioned the screws, it can’t turn past where it needs to be on the face so it sits perfectly there and doesn’t fall.
The fabric is held onto the side pieces with velcro and the side pieces are held onto the mask with magnets to easily remove them if needed.
Check it out in action here: https://www.facebook.com/KnowOnesDesigns/videos/1081442351983372/
Nyx all finished
